Study of the Flux and Spectral Variations in the VHE Emission from the Blazar Markarian 501, with the MAGIC Telescope

TL;DR

This study presents detailed spectral and temporal analysis of VHE gamma-ray emissions from blazar Mrk 501, revealing flux variability, spectral peak shifts, and rapid intra-night flux changes with high significance using MAGIC telescope data.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed spectral and temporal variability analysis of Mrk 501 in the VHE range during a dedicated observational campaign.

Findings

Flux varied by one order of magnitude

Detected intra-night flux doubling in ~2 minutes

Spectral peak correlated with gamma-ray flux

Abstract

The blazar Markarian 501 (Mrk 501) was observed above 100 GeV with the MAGIC Telescope during May, June and July 2005. The high sensitivity of the instrument made possible the detection of the source with high significance in each of the observing nights. During this observational campaign, the emitted gamma-ray flux from Mkn 501 was found to vary by one order of magnitude, and showed a high correlation with spectral changes. Intra-night flux variability was also observed, with flux-doubling times of ~2 minutes. The data showed a clear evidence of a spectral peak (in the nuFnu representation) during the nights when the gamma-ray activity was highest. The location of this spectral feature was found to be correlated with the emitted gamma-ray flux. In these proceedings we discuss some of the results of this unprecedented spectral and temporal analysis of Mrk 501 observations in the very high energy range.