MG13 - Talk detail |
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Participant |
Patricelli, Barbara | |||||||
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Institution |
Astronomy Institute - UNAM - Ciudad Universitaria - Mexico City - - Mexico | |||||||
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Session |
AP2 |
Accepted |
Yes |
Order |
6 |
Time |
20' | |
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Talk |
Oral abstract |
Title |
Long term monitoring of the TeV emission from Mrk 421 with the Milagro Observatory | |||||
| Co-authors | Nissim Fraija, Antonio Marinelli, Magda Gonzalez | |||||||
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Abstract |
The blazar Mrk 421 is one of the brightest extragalactic TeV gamma-ray sources. Like the other TeV blazars, it presents flares in both X-rays (with a X-ray duty cycle of ~ 31%) and TeV gamma-rays. A correlation has been observed between the emissions in these two energy bands, although not all X-ray flares have been associated with a simultaneous increase in the TeV flux. Milagro was a TeV gamma-ray detector located near Los Alamos, New Mexico. It used the water Cherenkov technique to detect extensive air-showers produced by Very High Energy (VHE, > 100 GeV) gamma rays as they interact with the Earth's atmosphere. Here we report on the long term TeV gamma-ray monitoring of Mrk 421 with Milagro. The source, observed over the period from December 2000 to March 2008, was detected with a statistical significance of 9.6 standard deviations. We present the study of the variability of Mrk 421 and provide upper limits on the flux; furthermore, we estimate the gamma-ray duty cycle of the source and compare it with the X-ray duty cycle. |
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