MAGIC long-term study of the distant TeV blazar PKS 1424+240 in a multiwavelength context
Abstract
We present a study of the very high energy (VHE; E > 100 GeV) gamma-ray emission of the blazar PKS 1424+240 observed with the MAGIC telescopes. The primary aim of this paper is the multiwavelength spectral characterization and modeling of this blazar, which is made particularly interesting by the recent discovery of a lower limit of its redshift of z > 0.6 and makes it a promising candidate to be the most distant VHE source. The source has been observed with the MAGIC telescopes in VHE gamma rays for a total observation time of ~33.6 h from 2009 to 2011. The source was marginally detected in VHE gamma rays during 2009 and 2010, and later, the detection was confirmed during an optical outburst in 2011. The combined significance of the stacked sample is ~7.2 sigma. The differential spectra measured during the different campaigns can be described by steep power laws with the indices ranging from 3.5 +/- 1.2 to 5.0 +/- 1.7. The MAGIC spectra corrected for the absorption due to the extragalactic background light connect smoothly, within systematic errors, with the mean spectrum in 2009-2011 observed at lower energies by the Fermi-LAT. The absorption-corrected MAGIC spectrum is flat with no apparent turn down up to 400 GeV. The multiwavelength light curve shows increasing flux in radio and optical bands that could point to a common origin from the same region of the jet. The large separation between the two peaks of the constructed non-simultaneous spectral energy distribution also requires an extremely high Doppler factor if an one zone synchrotron self-Compton model is applied. We find that a two-component synchrotron self-Compton model describes the spectral energy distribution of the source well, if the source is located at z~0.6.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1401.0464,
title = {MAGIC long-term study of the distant TeV blazar PKS 1424+240 in a multiwavelength context},
author = {MAGIC Collaboration and J. Aleksić and S. Ansoldi and L. A. Antonelli and P. Antoranz and A. Babic and P. Bangale and U. Barres de Almeida and J. A. Barrio and J. Becerra González and W. Bednarek and E. Bernardini and A. Biland and O. Blanch and S. Bonnefoy and G. Bonnoli and F. Borracci and T. Bretz and E. Carmona and A. Carosi and D. Carreto Fidalgo and P. Colin and E. Colombo and J. L. Contreras and J. Cortina and S. Covino and P. Da Vela and F. Dazzi and A. De Angelis and G. De Caneva and B. De Lotto and C. Delgado Mendez and M. Doert and A. Domínguez and D. Dominis Prester and D. Dorner and M. Doro and S. Einecke and D. Eisenacher and D. Elsaesser and E. Farina and D. Ferenc and M. V. Fonseca and L. Font and K. Frantzen and C. Fruck and R. J. García López and M. Garczarczyk and D. Garrido Terrats and M. Gaug and N. Godinović and A. González Muñoz and S. R. Gozzini and D. Hadasch and M. Hayashida and J. Herrera and A. Herrero and D. Hildebrand and J. Hose and D. Hrupec and W. Idec and V. Kadenius and H. Kellermann and K. Kodani and Y. Konno and J. Krause and H. Kubo and J. Kushida and A. La Barbera and D. Lelas and N. Lewandowska and E. Lindfors and S. Lombardi and M. López and R. López-Coto and A. López-Oramas and E. Lorenz and I. Lozano and M. Makariev and K. Mallot and G. Maneva and N. Mankuzhiyil and K. Mannheim and L. Maraschi and B. Marcote and M. Mariotti and M. Martínez and D. Mazin and U. Menzel and M. Meucci and J. M. Miranda and R. Mirzoyan and A. Moralejo and P. Munar-Adrover and D. Nakajima and A. Niedzwiecki and K. Nilsson and K. Nishijima and K. Noda and N. Nowak and R. Orito and A. Overkemping and S. Paiano and M. Palatiello and D. Paneque and R. Paoletti and J. M. Paredes and X. Paredes-Fortuny and S. Partini and M. Persic and F. Prada and P. G. Prada Moroni and E. Prandini and S. Preziuso and I. Puljak and R. Reinthal and W. Rhode and M. Ribó and J. Rico and J. Rodriguez Garcia and S. Rügamer and A. Saggion and T. Saito and K. Saito and K. Satalecka and V. Scalzotto and V. Scapin and C. Schultz and T. Schweizer and S. N. Shore and A. Sillanpää and J. Sitarek and I. Snidaric and D. Sobczynska and F. Spanier and V. Stamatescu and A. Stamerra and T. Steinbring and J. Storz and S. Sun and T. Surić and L. Takalo and H. Takami and F. Tavecchio and P. Temnikov and T. Terzić and D. Tescaro and M. Teshima and J. Thaele and O. Tibolla and D. F. Torres and T. Toyama and A. Treves and M. Uellenbeck and P. Vogler and R. M. Wagner and F. Zandanel and R. Zanin and S. Cutini and D. Gasparrini and A. Furniss and T. Hovatta and T. Kangas and E. Kankare and J. Kotilainen and M. Lister and A. Lähteenmäki and W. Max-Moerbeck and V. Pavlidou and A. Readhead and J. Richards},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1401.0464},
year = {2014}
}
Comments
15 pages, 8 figures. A&A accepted for publication