AN EXPERIMENT TO LOCATE THE SITE OF TeV FLARING IN M87
- SAO, 60 Garden St., Cambridge, MA 02138 (United States)
- National Academy of Sciences, Washington, DC 20001 (United States)
- Institute for Experimental Physics, University of Hamburg, Luruper Chaussee 149, D-22761 Hamburg (Germany)
- Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, JAXA, 3-1-1 Yoshinodai, Sagamihara, Kanagawa, 229-8510 (Japan)
- Landessternwarte Heidelberg-Koenigstuhl, 69117 Heidelberg (Germany)
- Max-Planck-Institut fuer Physik, D-80805 Muenchen (Germany)
- IFAE, Edifici Cn., Campus UAB, E-08193 Bellaterra (Spain)
- Department of Physics and McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences, Washington University in St. Louis, Campus Box 1105, 1 Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO 63130 (United States)
- Department of Physics, University of Utah, 115 South 1400 East, Salt-Lake-City, UT 84112-0830 (United States)
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, Barnard College, New York, NY 10027 (United States)
We describe a Chandra X-ray target-of-opportunity project designed to isolate the site of TeV flaring in the radio galaxy M87. To date, we have triggered the Chandra observations only once (2010 April) and by the time of the first of our nine observations, the TeV flare had ended. However, we found that the X-ray intensity of the unresolved nucleus was at an elevated level for our first observation. Of the more than 60 Chandra observations we have made of the M87 jet covering nine years, the nucleus was measured at a comparably high level only three times. Two of these occasions can be associated with TeV flaring, and at the time of the third event, there were no TeV monitoring activities. From the rapidity of the intensity drop of the nucleus, we infer that the size of the emitting region is of order a few light days Multiplication-Sign the unknown beaming factor; comparable to the same sort of estimate for the TeV emitting region. We also find evidence of spectral evolution in the X-ray band which seems consistent with radiative losses affecting the non-thermal population of the emitting electrons within the unresolved nucleus.
- OSTI ID:
- 22004421
- Journal Information:
- Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 743, Issue 2; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0004-637X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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