Is the Giant Radio Galaxy M 87 a TeV Gamma-Ray Emitter?

By H. C. Aharonian, A. Akhperjanian, M. Beilicke, et al. 2003

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For the first time an excess of photons above an energy threshold of 730 GeV from the giant radio galaxy M 87 has been measured at a significance level above 4 σ. The data have been taken during the years 1998 and 1999 with the HEGRA stereoscopic system of 5 imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes. The excess of 107.4 ± 26.8 events above 730 GeV corresponds to an integral flux of 3.3% of the Crab flux or Nγ(E > 730 GeV) = (0.96 ± 0.23) × 10 −12 phot cm −2 s −1 . M 87 is located at the center of the Virgo cluster of galaxies at a relatively small redshift of z = 0.00436 and is a promising candidate among the class of giant radio galaxies for the emission of TeV γ-radiation. The detection of TeV γ-rays from M 87 - if confirmed - would establish a new class of extragalactic source in this energy regime since all other AGN detected to date at TeV energies are BL Lac type objects.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Nuclear and High Energy Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/63f7f714b99706156c4d9df54dffe25d3564474a

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Citations in the corpus

A Multiwavelength View of the TeV Blazar Markarian 421: Correlated Variability, Flaring, and Spectral Evolution (2005, background): “They represent the only type of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) that has been detected at TeV energies (although a 4 detection of M87 has been reported; Aharonian et al. 2003).”
Dynamics and high-energy emission of the flaring HST-1 knot in the M 87 jet (2006, background): “…compilation C© 2006 RAS, MNRAS 370, 981–992 Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article-abstract/370/2/981/969573 by guest on 28 July 2018 HEGRA Cherenkov Telescopes System detected the M 87 emission with the photon flux of F γ (>0.73 TeV) ≈ 0.96 × 10−12 cm−2 s−1 (Aharonian et al. 2003).”
X-Ray Emission Properties of Large-Scale Jets, Hot Spots, and Lobes in Active Galactic Nuclei (2004, methodology): “Nearby radio galaxy M 87 was detected at TeV photon energies by HEGRA Cherenkov Telescope (Aharonian et al. 2003), and it was shown that the kpc-scale jet in this object can produce very high energy γ-ray photons at the required level via comptonization of the starlight photon field (Stawarz et al.…”
Production of TeV Gamma Radiation in the Vicinity of the Supermassive Black Hole in the Giant Radio Galaxy M87 (2007, background): “In this regard, the discovery of a TeV γ-ray signal from M 87 by the HEGRA array of Cherenkov telescopes (Aharonian et al. 2003) and its confirmation by the HESS array of telescopes (Aharonian et al. 2006), was not a big surprise, especially given the rather modest apparent TeV γ-ray luminosity…”
New limits on the density of the extragalactic background light in the optical to the far-infrared from the spectra of all known TeV blazars (2007, background): “The measured spectrum of the TeV blazar H 1426+428 at a redshift ofz = 0.129 (Aharonian et al. 2002b) led to a first tentative detection ofan imprint of the EBL in a VHE spectrum (Aharonian et al. 2002b, 2003c).”
SEARCH FOR COSMIC-RAY-INDUCED GAMMA-RAY EMISSION IN GALAXY CLUSTERS (2013, background): “…University, Higashi-Hiroshima, Hiroshima 739-8526, Japan 56 Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats (ICREA), Barcelona, Spain 57 3-34-1 Nishi-Ikebukuro,Toshima-ku, , Tokyo Japan 171- Abdo et al. 2009; Aharonian et al. 2003), no cluster-wide γ-ray emission has been detected so far.”
Spine–sheath layer radiative interplay in subparsec‐scale jets and the TeV emission from M87 (2008, background): “…source of high-energy radiation (e.g. Bai & Lee 2001) based on its similarity with BL Lac objects (Tsvetanov et al. 1998), M87 was discovered as a TeV source by the HEGRA array of Cherenkov telescopes (Aharonian et al. 2003) and it has been recently confirmed by H.E.S.S. (Aharonin et al. 2006).”