Article

# MAGIC observations of the giant radio galaxy M87 in a low-emission state between 2005 and 2007

07/2012; DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361/201117827
Source: arXiv

ABSTRACT We present the results of a long M87 monitoring campaign in very high energy
$\gamma$-rays with the MAGIC-I Cherenkov telescope. We aim to model the
persistent non-thermal jet emission by monitoring and characterizing the very
high energy $\gamma$-ray emission of M87 during a low state. A total of 150\,h
of data were taken between 2005 and 2007 with the single MAGIC-I telescope, out
of which 128.6\,h survived the data quality selection. We also collected data
in the X-ray and \textit{Fermi}--LAT bands from the literature (partially
contemporaneous). No flaring activity was found during the campaign. The source
was found to be in a persistent low-emission state, which was at a confidence
level of $7\sigma$. We present the spectrum between 100\,GeV and 2\,TeV, which
is consistent with a simple power law with a photon index $\Gamma=2.21\pm0.21$
and a flux normalization at 300\,GeV of $(7.7\pm1.3) \times 10^{-8}$ TeV$^{-1}$
s$^{-1}$ m$^{-2}$. The extrapolation of the MAGIC spectrum into the GeV energy
range matches the previously published \textit{Fermi}--LAT spectrum well,
covering a combined energy range of four orders of magnitude with the same
spectral index. We model the broad band energy spectrum with a spine layer
model, which can satisfactorily describe our data.

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The Astrophysical Journal 06/2010; 716(1). · 6.28 Impact Factor
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