DISCOVERY OF A GeV BLAZAR SHINING THROUGH THE GALACTIC PLANE

Journal Article · Sun Aug 01 00:00:00 EDT 2010 · Astrophysical Journal Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1088/2041-8205/718/2/L166· OSTI ID:21450999

Vandenbroucke, J; Buehler, R; Ajello, M; Bechtol, K; Funk, S; Healey, S E; Madejski, G M; Romani, R W; Shaw, M S ^[1]; Bellini, A ^[2]; Bolte, M ^[3]; Cheung, C C ^[4]; Civano, F; Torres, M A. P. ^[5]; Donato, D ^[6]; Fuhrmann, L ^[7]; Hill, A B ^[8]; Knigge, C ^[9]; Santander-Garcia, M ^[10]; Steeghs, D ^[11]

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1. W. W. Hansen Experimental Physics Laboratory, Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology, Department of Physics and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305 (United States)
2. Dipartimento di Astronomia, Universita di Padova, I-35122 Padova (Italy)
3. Santa Cruz Institute for Particle Physics, Department of Physics and Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of California at Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA 95064 (United States)
4. Space Science Division, Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC 20375 (United States)
5. Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, MA 02138 (United States)
6. NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771 (United States)
7. Max-Planck-Institut fuer Radioastronomie, Auf dem Huegel 69, 53121 Bonn (Germany)
8. Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Grenoble (LAOG) UMR 5571, Universite Joseph Fourier-Grenoble 1/CNRS, BP 53, 38041 Grenoble Cedex 09 (France)
9. School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Southampton, Highfield, Southampton, SO17 1BJ (United Kingdom)
10. Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias, E38205-La Laguna (Tenerife) (Spain)
11. Department of Physics, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL (United Kingdom)

The Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) discovered a new gamma-ray source near the Galactic plane, Fermi J0109+6134, when it flared brightly in 2010 February. The low Galactic latitude (b = -1.{sup 0}2) indicated that the source could be located within the Galaxy, which motivated rapid multi-wavelength follow-up including radio, optical, and X-ray observations. We report the results of analyzing all 19 months of LAT data for the source, and of X-ray observations with both Swift and the Chandra X-ray Observatory. We determined the source redshift, z = 0.783, using a Keck Low-Resolution Imaging Spectrometer observation. Finally, we compiled a broadband spectral energy distribution (SED) from both historical and new observations contemporaneous with the 2010 February flare. The redshift, SED, optical line width, X-ray absorption, and multi-band variability indicate that this new GeV source is a blazar seen through the Galactic plane. Because several of the optical emission lines have equivalent width >5 A, this blazar belongs in the flat-spectrum radio quasar category.

• OSTI ID: 21450999
• Journal Information: Astrophysical Journal Letters, Vol. 718, Issue 2; Other Information: DOI: 10.1088/2041-8205/718/2/L166; ISSN 2041-8205
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

79 ASTROPHYSICS
COSMOLOGY AND ASTRONOMY
ABSORPTION
COSMIC GAMMA SOURCES
EMISSION
ENERGY SPECTRA
GALAXIES
GEV RANGE
LINE WIDTHS
QUASARS
RED SHIFT
SPECTROMETERS
TELESCOPES
X RADIATION
COSMIC RADIO SOURCES
COSMIC RAY SOURCES
ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION
ENERGY RANGE
IONIZING RADIATIONS
MEASURING INSTRUMENTS
RADIATIONS
SORPTION
SPECTRA