Results from MAGIC Observations of Extragalactic Relativistic Sources

TL;DR

This paper reviews MAGIC telescope observations of extragalactic gamma-ray sources, highlighting their importance in understanding relativistic astrophysical objects and their emission mechanisms at very-high energies.

Contribution

It presents new observational results from MAGIC on various extragalactic sources, emphasizing the telescope's low-energy threshold and its role in studying distant AGN and quasars.

Findings

Detection of gamma-ray emission from multiple AGN

Insights into gamma-ray attenuation by EBL

Characterization of blazar and quasar spectra

Abstract

The Major Atmospheric Gamma-ray Imaging Cherenkov (MAGIC) experiment is an array of two 17-meter telescopes located in the Canary Island of La Palma that observes the very-high energy (VHE) gamma-ray sky in stereoscopic mode since 2009. MAGIC is distinguished by its low-energy threshold of approximately 50 GeV, which grants the system a unique potential in the study of distant extragalactic sources whose gamma-ray emission is significantly attenuated due to absorption by the extragalactic background light (EBL). The observation of non-thermal gamma rays in the GeV-TeV range from extragalactic sources is a characteristic signature of their relativistic nature and therefore fundamentally important for our understanding of the physics of these objects. Since the beginning of its stereo operation, MAGIC has observed a large number of active galactic nuclei (AGN) of different classes, including several blazars and distant quasars. In this paper we will review some of the most important results of these observations.