The flaring blazars of the first 1.5 years of the AGILE mission

TL;DR

This paper presents gamma-ray observations of seven flaring blazars by the AGILE mission, highlighting their variability and multiwavelength campaigns, including the first simultaneous gamma-ray and hard X-ray observation of 3C 273.

Contribution

It provides new multiwavelength observational data on flaring blazars, including the first simultaneous gamma-ray and hard X-ray observations of 3C 273, and reports on gamma-ray variability in several sources.

Findings

3C 454.3 showed flux > 10^-6 photons/cm^2/s with day-to-day variability.

PKS 1510-089 frequently exhibited high gamma-ray activity.

S5 0716+71 displayed rapid gamma-ray variability during optical activity.

Abstract

We report the AGILE gamma-ray observations and the results of the multiwavelength campaigns on seven flaring blazars detected by the mission: During two multiwavelength campaigns, we observed gamma-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 gamma-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 10E-6 photons/cm2/s (E > 100 MeV) and showed day by day variability during all the AGILE observing periods. In the EGRET era, the source was found in high gamma-ray activity only once. An other blazar, PKS 1510-089 was frequently found in high gamma-ray activity. S5 0716+71, an intermediate BL Lac object, exhibited a very high gamma-ray activity and fast gamma-ray variability during a period of intense optical activity. We observed high gamma-ray activity from W Comae, a BL Lac object, and Mrk 421, an high energy peaked BL Lac object. For this source, a multiwavelength campaign from optical to TeV has been performed.