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VERITAS Observations of a Very High Energy Gamma-ray Flare from the Blazar 3C 66A

Lang, Mark
; 
Gillanders, Gary
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Publication Date
2009
Keywords
Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena, Astrophysics - Cosmology and Extragalactic Astrophysics
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Article
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VERITAS Collaboration: V. A. Acciari, E. Aliu, T. Arlen, M. Beilicke, W. Benbo...(2009)VERITAS Observations of a Very High Energy Gamma-ray Flare from the Blazar 3C 66A, Astrophys.J.693:L104-L108,2009
Abstract
The intermediate-frequency peaked BL Lacertae (IBL) object 3C 66A is detected during 2007 - 2008 in VHE (very high energy: E > 100 GeV) gamma-rays with the VERITAS stereoscopic array of imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes. An excess of 1791 events is detected, corresponding to a significance of 21.2 standard deviations (sigma), in these observations (32.8 hours live time). The observed integral flux above 200 GeV is 6% of the Crab Nebula's flux and shows evidence for variability on the time-scale of days. The measured energy spectrum is characterized by a soft power law with photon index Gamma = 4.1 +- 0.4_stat +- 0.6_sys. The radio galaxy 3C 66B is excluded as a possible source of the VHE emission.
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Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Ireland
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School of Physics (Scholarly Articles)