The brightest gamma-ray flaring blazar in the sky: AGILE and multi-wavelength observations of 3C 454.3 during November 2010

Details The brightest gamma-ray flaring blazar in the sky: AGILE and multi-wavelength observations of 3C 454.3 during November 2010 The brightest gamma-ray flaring blazar in the sky: AGILE and multi-wavelength observations of 3C 454.3 during November 2010

2011-06-25

arxiv.org/abs/1106.5162v1

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena

Accepted for publication in ApJ Letters. 18 Pages, 4 Figures, 1 Table

Scientific paper

Since 2005, the blazar 3C 454.3 has shown remarkable flaring activity at all frequencies, and during the last four years it has exhibited more than one gamma-ray flare per year, becoming the most active gamma-ray blazar in the sky. We present for the first time the multi-wavelength AGILE, SWIFT, INTEGRAL, and GASP-WEBT data collected in order to explain the extraordinary gamma-ray flare of 3C 454.3 which occurred in November 2010. On 2010 November 20 (MJD 55520), 3C 454.3 reached a peak flux (E>100 MeV) of F_gamma(p) = (6.8+-1.0)E-5 ph/cm2/s on a time scale of about 12 hours, more than a factor of 6 higher than the flux of the brightest steady gamma-ray source, the Vela pulsar, and more than a factor of 3 brighter than its previous super-flare on 2009 December 2-3. The multi-wavelength data make a thorough study of the present event possible: the comparison with the previous outbursts indicates a close similarity to the one that occurred in 2009. By comparing the broadband emission before, during, and after the gamma-ray flare, we find that the radio, optical and X-ray emission varies within a factor 2-3, whereas the gamma-ray flux by a factor of 10. This remarkable behavior is modeled by an external Compton component driven by a substantial local enhancement of soft seed photons.

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