Rossi X-Ray Timing Explorer Observations of the Gamma-Ray Blazar PKS 2155-304

Details Rossi X-Ray Timing Explorer Observations of the Gamma-Ray Blazar PKS 2155-304 Rossi X-Ray Timing Explorer Observations of the Gamma-Ray Blazar PKS 2155-304

Jan 1999

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1999nhud.confq....v&link_type=abstract

Technical Report, New Hampshire Univ. Durham, NH United States Physics Dept.

Physics

Blazars, Display Devices, Gamma Ray Observatory, Photons, Spectral Energy Distribution, Time Measurement, Variability, Continuums, Gamma Ray Telescopes, High Energy Electrons, Relativistic Particles, Synchrotron Radiation, Telescopes, X Ray Timing Explorer

Scientific paper

PKS 2155-304 is the archetypical X-ray-selected BL Lac object (XBL). It is one of the brightest BL Lacs at x-ray through optical wavelengths where it has a relatively featureless continuum and displays rapid, large amplitude variability. This continuum is thought to be direct synchrotron emission from a distribution of ultra-relativistic electrons which extends to unusually high energies (Edelson et al. 1995). The gamma-ray emission from PKS 2155-304 constitutes a second, separate, spectral component. Observations with the EGRET telescope aboard the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory (CGRO) show that the spectral energy distribution of this gamma-ray component must peak at energies above 10 GeV (Vestrand et al. 1995). This, plus the realization that the extension of the synchrotron component into the x-ray band meant that ambient photons would be scattered to TeV energies, led to predictions that PKS 2155-304 would be a detectable TeV gamma ray source (Vestrand et al. 1995; Stecker et al. 1996). The University of Durham group has recently reported the discovery of TeV gamma ray emission from PKS 2155-304 (Chadwick et al. 1998, 1999) . The TeV emission was detected in 1996 September and 1997 October/November, with the largest fluxes being measured in 1997 November. During 1997 November, we detected a record high GeV gamma-ray flux from PKS 2155-304 with CGRO/EGRET (Sreekumar and Vestrand 1997) and subsequently very high x-ray fluxes were measured with BeppoSAX (Chiapeeti et al. 1997). Here we report on the record x-ray fluxes measured with the Rossi X-Ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) during the GeV/TeV outburst.

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