Discovery of Very High Energy Gamma-Ray Emission from 1FGL J2001.1 4351 by MAGIC.

摘要

We report the discovery of Very High Energy (VHE; >100 GeV) gamma-ray emission from the source 1FGL J2001.1+4351, (RA 20 01 13.5, dec 43 53 02.8, J2000), which is positionally consistent with the location of the flat spectrum radio source MG4 J200112+4352 (RA 20 01 12.9, dec 43 52 52.8, J2000). The VHE detection is based on a 1.5 hour-long observation performed on July 16th in stereoscopic mode with the two 17m diameter imaging Cherenkov telescopes on La Palma, Canary Islands, Spain. The preliminary analysis of the MAGIC data using the standard cuts optimized for soft energy spectra sources yields a detection of 125 gamma-rays above 90 GeV, corresponding to a pre-trail statistical significance of 7.6 standard deviations. The observed flux is estimated to be (approx)20% of the Crab nebula flux above 100 GeV. Earlier MAGIC observations indicated a substantially lower flux; hence indicating that the source is variable on a few days timescale.