Discovery of Very High Energy Gamma-Rays from the Distant Flat Spectrum Radio Quasar 3C 279 with the MAGIC Telescope

TL;DR

This paper reports the first detection of very high energy gamma-rays from the distant quasar 3C 279 using the MAGIC telescope, demonstrating the capability to observe such sources despite expected attenuation.

Contribution

First detection of VHE gamma-rays from a high-redshift quasar, showing that distant sources can be observed at these energies.

Findings

Significant gamma-ray signal detected on 2006 February 23

Observation demonstrates feasibility of VHE detection from distant quasars

Results challenge previous expectations about gamma-ray attenuation at high redshift

Abstract

The quasar 3C 279 is one of the best-studied flat spectrum radio quasars. It is located at a comparatively large redshift of z=0.536: E>100 GeV observations of such distant sources were until recently impossible both due to the expected steep energy spectrum and the expected attenuation of the gamma-rays by the extragalactic background light. Here we present results on the observation of 3C 279 with the MAGIC telescope in early 2006. We report the detection of a significant very high energy gamma-ray signal in the MAGIC energy range on the observation night of 2006 February 23.