The flaring blazars of the first 1.5 years of the AGILE mission
Antonelli, L. A.; Costa, E.; Mereghetti, S.; Barbiellini, G.; Longo, F.; Morselli, A.; Chen, A. W.; Colafrancesco, S.; Giommi, P.; Di Cocco, G.; Pellizzoni, A.; Pilia, M.; Gianotti, F.; Feroci, M.; D'Ammando, F.; Del Monte, E.; Donnarumma, I.; Evangelista, Y.; Soffitta, P.; Trois, A.; Moretti, E.; Vercellone, S.; Pacciani, L.; Verrecchia, F.; Vittorini, V.; Tavani, M.; Bulgarelli, A.; Giuliani, A.; Pucella, G.; Argan, A.; Caraveo, P.; Cattaneo, P. W.; Ferrari, A.; Fiorini, M.; Fuschino, F.; Galli, M.; Labanti, C.; Lapshov, I.; Lazzarotto, F.; Lipari, P.; Marisaldi, M.; Morelli, E.; Perotti, F.; Piano, G.; Picozza, P.; Prest, M.; Rapisarda, M.; Rappoldi, A.; Rubini, A.; Sabatini, S.; Trifoglio, M.; Vallazza, E.; Zanello, D.; Pittori, C.; Santolamazza, P.; Salotti, L.; Zambra, A.; Boffelli, F.; Cocco, V.; Froysland, T.; Mastropietro, M.; de Paris, G.; Porrovecchio, G.
Italy
Abstract
We report the AGILE γ-ray observations and the results of the multiwavelength campaigns on seven flaring blazars detected by the mission: During two multiwavelength campaigns, we observed γ-ray activity from two Flat Spectrum Radio Quasars of the Virgo region, e.g. 3C 279 and 3C 273 (the latter being the first extragalactic source simultaneously observed with the γ-ray telescope and the hard X ray imager of the mission). Due to the large FOV of the AGILE/GRID instrument, we achieved an almost continuous coverage of the FSRQ 3C 454.3. The source showed flux above 10-6 photons/cm2/s (E>100MeV) and showed day by day variability during all the AGILE observing periods. In the EGRET era, the source was found in high γ-ray activity only once. An other blazar, PKS 1510-089 was frequently found in high γ-ray activity. S5 0716+71, an intermediate BL Lac object, exhibited a very high γ-ray activity and fast γ-ray variability during a period of intense optical activity. We observed high γ-ray activity from W Comae, a BL Lac object, and Mrk 421, a high energy peaked BL Lac object. For this source, a multiwavelength campaign from optical to TeV has been performed.