Unraveling the Complex Behavior of Mrk 421 with Simultaneous X-Ray and VHE Observations during an Extreme Flaring Activity in 2013 April

Acciari, V. A.; Ansoldi, S.; Antonelli, L. A.; Arbet Engels, A.; Baack, D.; Babić, A.; Banerjee, B.; Barres de Almeida, U.; Barrio, J. A.; Becerra González, J.; Bednarek, W.; Bellizzi, L. K.; Bernardini, E.; Berti, A.; Besenrieder, J.; Bhattacharyya, W.; Bigongiari, C.; Biland, A.; Blanch, O.; Bonnoli, G.; Bošnjak, Ž.; Busetto, G.; Carosi, R.; Ceribella, G.; Cerruti, M.; Chai, Y.; Chilingarian, A.; Cikota, S.; Colak, S. M.; Colin, U.; Colombo, E.; Contreras, J. L.; Cortina, J.; Covino, S.; D'Elia, V.; Da Vela, P.; Dazzi, F.; De Angelis, A.; De Lotto, B.; Del Puppo, F.; Delfino, M.; Delgado, J.; Depaoli, D.; Di Pierro, F.; Di Venere, L.; Do Souto Espiñeira, E.; Dominis Prester, D.; Donini, A.; Dorner, D.; Doro, M.; Elsaesser, D.; Fallah Ramazani, V.; Fattorini, A.; Ferrara, G.; Foffano, L.; Fonseca, M. V.; Font, L.; Fruck, C.; Fukami, S.; García López, R. J.; Garczarczyk, M.; Gasparyan, S.; Gaug, M.; Giglietto, N.; Giordano, F.; Gliwny, P.; Godinović, N.; Green, D.; Hadasch, D.; Hahn, A.; Hassan, T.; Herrera, J.; Hoang, J.; Hrupec, D.; Hütten, M.; Inada, T.; Inoue, S.; Ishio, K.; Iwamura, Y.; Jouvin, L.; Kajiwara, Y.; Kerszberg, D.; Kobayashi, Y.; Kubo, H.; Kushida, J.; Lamastra, A.; Lelas, D.; Leone, F.; Lindfors, E.; Lombardi, S.; Longo, F.; López, M.; López-Coto, R.; López-Oramas, A.; Loporchio, S.; Machado de Oliveira Fraga, B.; Maggio, C.; Majumdar, P.; Makariev, M.; Mallamaci, M.; Maneva, G.; Manganaro, M.; Mannheim, K.; Maraschi, L.; Mariotti, M.; Martínez, M.; Mazin, D.; Mender, S.; Mićanović, S.; Miceli, D.; Miener, T.; Minev, M.; Miranda, J. M.; Mirzoyan, R.; Molina, E.; Moralejo, A.; Morcuende, D.; Moreno, V.; Moretti, E.; Munar-Adrover, P.; Neustroev, V.; Nigro, C.; Nilsson, K.; Ninci, D.; Nishijima, K.; Noda, K.; Nogués, L.; Nozaki, S.; Ohtani, Y.; Oka, T.; Otero-Santos, J.; Palatiello, M.; Paneque, D.; Paoletti, R.; Paredes, J. M.; Pavletić, L.; Peñil, P.; Peresano, M.; Persic, M.; Prada Moroni, P. G.; Prandini, E.; Puljak, I.; Rhode, W.; Ribó, M.; Rico, J.; Righi, C.; Rugliancich, A.; Saha, L.; Sahakyan, N.; Saito, T.; Sakurai, S.; Satalecka, K.; Schleicher, B.; Schmidt, K.; Schweizer, T.; Sitarek, J.; Šnidarić, I.; Sobczynska, D.; Spolon, A.; Stamerra, A.; Strom, D.; Strzys, M.; Suda, Y.; Surić, T.; Takahashi, M.; Tavecchio, F.; Temnikov, P.; Terzić, T.; Teshima, M.; Torres-Albà, N.; Tosti, L.; van Scherpenberg, J.; Vanzo, G.; Vazquez Acosta, M.; Ventura, S.; Verguilov, V.; Vigorito, C. F.; Vitale, V.; Vovk, I.; Will, M.; Zarić, D.; Petropoulou, M.; Finke, J.; D'Ammando, F.; Baloković, M.; Madejski, G.; Mori, K.; Puccetti, Simonetta; Leto, C.; Perri, M.; Verrecchia, F.; Villata, M.; Raiteri, C. M.; Agudo, I.; Bachev, R.; Berdyugin, A.; Blinov, D. A.; Chanishvili, R.; Chen, W. P.; Chigladze, R.; Damljanovic, G.; Eswaraiah, C.; Grishina, T. S.; Ibryamov, S.; Jordan, B.; Jorstad, S. G.; Joshi, M.; Kopatskaya, E. N.; Kurtanidze, O. M.; Kurtanidze, S. O.; Larionova, E. G.; Larionova, L. V.; Larionov, V. M.; Latev, G.; Lin, H. C.; Marscher, A. P.; Mokrushina, A. A.; Morozova, D. A.; Nikolashvili, M. G.; Semkov, E.; Smith, P. S.; Strigachev, A.; Troitskaya, Yu. V.; Troitsky, I. S.; Vince, O.; Barnes, J.; Güver, T.; Moody, J. W.; Sadun, A. C.; Hovatta, T.; Richards, J. L.; Max-Moerbeck, W.; Readhead, A. C. R.; Lähteenmäki, A.; Tornikoski, M.; Tammi, J.; Ramakrishnan, V.; Reinthal, R.; MAGIC Collaboration

doi:10.3847/1538-4365/ab89b5

Published June 2020 | Version Accepted Version + Published

Journal Article Open

Unraveling the Complex Behavior of Mrk 421 with Simultaneous X-Ray and VHE Observations during an Extreme Flaring Activity in 2013 April

1. Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias
2. University of Udine
3. University of Tokyo
4. Kyoto University
5. Tokai University
6. RIKEN
7. National Institute for Astrophysics
8. ETH Zurich
9. TU Dortmund University
10. University of Rijeka
11. University of Split
12. University of Zagreb
13. University of Osijek
14. Rudjer Boskovic Institute
15. Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics
16. Centro Brasileiro de Pesquisas Físicas
17. Complutense University of Madrid
18. University of Łódź
19. University of Siena
20. Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY
21. University of Padua
22. National Institute for Nuclear Physics
23. Max Planck Institute for Physics
24. Institute for High Energy Physics
25. University of Pisa
26. University of Barcelona
27. Alikhanyan National Laboratory
28. Centro de Investigaciones Energéticas, Medioambientales y Tecnológicas
29. Universität Innsbruck
30. Port d'Informació Científica
31. University of Würzburg
32. University of Turku
33. University of Oulu
34. Autonomous University of Barcelona
35. University of Trieste
36. Institute for Nuclear Research and Nuclear Energy
37. University of Bologna
38. Princeton University
39. United States Naval Research Laboratory
40. Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
41. Harvard University
42. Stanford University
43. Columbia University
44. Agenzia Spaziale Italiana
45. Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía
46. Bulgarian Academy of Sciences
47. St Petersburg University
48. University of Crete
49. Foundation for Research and Technology Hellas
50. Abastumani Astrophysical Observatory
51. National Central University
52. Astronomical Observatory
53. Dublin Institute For Advanced Studies
54. Boston University
55. Kazan Federal University
56. Guangzhou University
57. Pulkovo Observatory
58. University of Arizona
59. Salt Lake Community College
60. Istanbul University
61. Brigham Young University
62. University of Colorado Denver
63. Aalto University
64. Purdue University West Lafayette
65. University of Chile
66. California Institute of Technology

We report on a multiband variability and correlation study of the TeV blazar Mrk 421 during an exceptional flaring activity observed from 2013 April 11 to 19. The study uses, among others, data from GLAST-AGILE Support Program (GASP) of the Whole Earth Blazar Telescope (WEBT), Swift, Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR), Fermi Large Area Telescope, Very Energetic Radiation Imaging Telescope Array System (VERITAS), and Major Atmospheric Gamma Imaging Cherenkov (MAGIC). The large blazar activity and the 43 hr of simultaneous NuSTAR and MAGIC/VERITAS observations permitted variability studies on 15 minute time bins over three X-ray bands (3–7 keV, 7–30 keV, and 30–80 keV) and three very-high-energy (VHE; >0.1 TeV) gamma-ray bands (0.2–0.4 TeV, 0.4–0.8 TeV, and >0.8 TeV). We detected substantial flux variations on multi-hour and sub-hour timescales in all of the X-ray and VHE gamma-ray bands. The characteristics of the sub-hour flux variations are essentially energy independent, while the multi-hour flux variations can have a strong dependence on the energy of the X-rays and the VHE gamma-rays. The three VHE bands and the three X-ray bands are positively correlated with no time lag, but the strength and characteristics of the correlation change substantially over time and across energy bands. Our findings favor multi-zone scenarios for explaining the achromatic/chromatic variability of the fast/slow components of the light curves, as well as the changes in the flux–flux correlation on day-long timescales. We interpret these results within a magnetic reconnection scenario, where the multi-hour flux variations are dominated by the combined emission from various plasmoids of different sizes and velocities, while the sub-hour flux variations are dominated by the emission from a single small plasmoid moving across the magnetic reconnection layer.

Additional Information

© 2020 The American Astronomical Society. Received 2019 December 5; revised 2020 January 18; accepted 2020 January 23; published 2020 June 10. The MAGIC collaboration would like to thank the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias for the excellent working conditions at the Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos in La Palma. The financial support of the German BMBF and MPG, the Italian INFN and INAF, the Swiss National Fund SNF, the ERDF under the Spanish MINECO (FPA2017-87859-P, FPA2017-85668-P, FPA2017-82729-C6-2-R, FPA2017-82729-C6-6-R, FPA2017-82729-C6-5-R, AYA2015-71042-P, AYA2016-76012-C3-1-P, ESP2017-87055-C2-2-P, and FPA201790566REDC), the Indian Department of Atomic Energy, the Japanese JSPS and MEXT, the Bulgarian Ministry of Education and Science, National RI Roadmap Project DO1-153/28.08.2018 and the Academy of Finland grant No. 320045 is gratefully acknowledged. This work was also supported by the Spanish Centro de Excelencia "Severo Ochoa" SEV-2016-0588 and SEV-2015-0548, and Unidad de Excelencia "María de Maeztu" MDM-2014-0369, by the Croatian Science Foundation (HrZZ) Project IP-2016-06-9782 and the University of Rijeka Project 13.12.1.3.02, by the DFG Collaborative Research Centers SFB823/C4 and SFB876/C3, the Polish National Research Centre grant UMO-2016/22/M/ST9/00382, and by the Brazilian MCTIC, CNPq and FAPERJ. The Fermi-LAT Collaboration acknowledges generous ongoing support from a number of agencies and institutes that have supported both the development and the operation of the LAT as well as scientific data analysis. These include the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the Department of Energy in the United States, the Commissariat à l'Energie Atomique and the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique/Institut National de Physique Nucléaire et de Physique des Particules in France, the Agenzia Spaziale Italiana and the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare in Italy, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK), and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) in Japan, and the K. A. Wallenberg Foundation, the Swedish Research Council, and the Swedish National Space Board in Sweden. Additional support for science analysis during the operations phase is gratefully acknowledged from the Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica in Italy and the Centre National d'Études Spatiales in France. This work made use of data from the NuSTAR mission, a project led by the California Institute of Technology, managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. We thank the NuSTAR Operations, Software, and Calibration teams for support with the execution and analysis of these observations. This research has made use of the NuSTAR Data Analysis Software (NuSTARDAS) jointly developed by the ASI Science Data Center (ASDC; Italy) and the California Institute of Technology (USA). This research has made use of the XRT Data Analysis Software (XRTDAS) developed under the responsibility of the ASI Science Data Center (ASDC), Italy. D.P. and A.B. are grateful to Amy Furniss and Wystan Benbow for providing the VERITAS VHE gamma-ray fluxes and for useful discussions about them. M.P. acknowledges support from the Lyman Jr. Spitzer Postdoctoral Fellowship and NASA Fermi grant No. 80NSSC18K1745, and J.F. is partially supported by NASA under contract S-15633Y. M.B. acknowledges support from NASA Headquarters under the NASA Earth and Space Science Fellowship Program (grant NNX14AQ07H) and the black hole Initiative at Harvard University, which is funded in part by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation (grant GBMF8273) and in part by the John Templeton Foundation. This research was partially supported by the Bulgarian National Science Fund of the Ministry of Education and Science under grants DN 18-13/2017, DN 18-10/2017, KP-06-H28/3 (2018), and KP-06-PN38/1 (2019), as well as for the Spanish MIMECO (AYA2016-80889-P, RYC-2013-14511) and the IAA-CSIC "Severo Ochoa" program SEV-2017-0709. The St. Petersburg University team acknowledges support from Russian Science Foundation grant 17-12-01029. The Abastumani team acknowledges financial support of the project FR/638/6-320/12 by the Shota Rustaveli National Science Foundation under contract 31/77. T.G. acknowledges support from Istanbul University (Project numbers 49429 and 48285), Bilim Akademisi (BAGEP program), and TUBITAK (project numbers 13AT100-431, 13AT100-466, and 13AT60-430). The Boston University effort was supported in part by NASA grants NNX12AO90G and NNX14AQ58G. Data from the Steward Observatory spectropolarimetric monitoring project were used in this paper. This program is supported by Fermi Guest Investigator grants NNX08AW56G, NNX09AU10G, NNX12AO93G, and NNX15AU81G. The OVRO 40 m monitoring program is supported in part by NASA grants NNX08AW31G and NNX11A043G and NSF grants AST-0808050 and AST-1109911. The Metsähovi team acknowledges the support from the Academy of Finland to our observing projects (numbers 212656, 210338, 121148, and others). W.M. acknowledges support from CONICYT project Basal AFB-170002.

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Eprint ID: 103862
Resolver ID: CaltechAUTHORS:20200612-080225979

Describes: https://arxiv.org/abs/2001.08678 (URL)

Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF)
Max Planck Society
Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN)
Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF)
Swiss National Fund (SNF)
European Regional Development Funds (ERDF)
Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad (MINECO)
FPA2017-87859-P
Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad (MINECO)
FPA2017-85668-P
Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad (MINECO)
FPA2017-82729-C6-2-R
Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad (MINECO)
FPA2017-82729-C6-6-R
Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad (MINECO)
FPA2017-82729-C6-5-R
Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad (MINECO)
AYA2015-71042-P
Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad (MINECO)
AYA2016-76012-C3-1-P
Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad (MINECO)
ESP2017-87055-C2-2-P
Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad (MINECO)
FPA201790566REDC
Department of Atomic Energy (India)
Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS)
Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT)
Ministry of Education and Science (Bulgaria)
DO1-153/28.08.2018
Academy of Finland
320045
Centro de Excelencia Severo Ochoa
SEV-2016-0588
Centro de Excelencia Severo Ochoa
SEV-2015-0548
Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad (MINECO)
MDM-2014-0369
Croatian Science Foundation
IP-2016-06-9782
University of Rijeka
13.12.1.3.02
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG)
SFB823/C4
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG)
SFB876/C3
National Science Centre (Poland)
UMO-2016/22/M/ST9/00382
Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia, Inovações e Comunicações (MCTIC)
Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)
Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (FAPERJ)
NASA/JPL/Caltech
Princeton University
NASA
80NSSC18K1745
NASA
S-15633Y
NASA Earth and Space Science Fellowship
NNX14AQ07H
Harvard University
Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation
GBMF8273
John Templeton Foundation
Ministry of Education and Science (Bulgaria)
DN 18-13/2017
Ministry of Education and Science (Bulgaria)
DN 18-10/2017
Ministry of Education and Science (Bulgaria)
KP-06-H28/3
Ministry of Education and Science (Bulgaria)
KP-06-PN38/1
Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (MINECO)
AYA2016-80889-P
Ramón y Cajal Programme
RYC-2013-14511
Severo Ochoa
SEV-2017-0709
Russian Science Foundation
17-12-01029
Shota Rustaveli National Science Foundation
FR/638/6-320/12
Shota Rustaveli National Science Foundation
31/77
Istanbul University
49429
Istanbul University
48285
Bilim Akademisi
Türkiye Bilimsel ve Teknolojik Araştırma Kurumu (TÜBİTAK)
13AT100-431
Türkiye Bilimsel ve Teknolojik Araştırma Kurumu (TÜBİTAK)
13AT100-466
Türkiye Bilimsel ve Teknolojik Araştırma Kurumu (TÜBİTAK)
13AT60-430
NASA
NNX12AO90G
NASA
NNX14AQ58G
NASA
NNX08AW56G
NASA
NNX09AU10G
NASA
NNX12AO93G
NASA
NNX15AU81G
NASA
NNX08AW31G
NASA
NNX11A043G
NSF
AST-0808050
NSF
AST-1109911
Academy of Finland
212656
Academy of Finland
210338
Academy of Finland
121148
BASAL-CATA
AFB-170002

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Unraveling the Complex Behavior of Mrk 421 with Simultaneous X-Ray and VHE Observations during an Extreme Flaring Activity in 2013 April

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Unraveling the Complex Behavior of Mrk 421 with Simultaneous X-Ray and VHE Observations during an Extreme Flaring Activity in 2013 April

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