Detection of two TeV gamma-ray outbursts from NGC 1275 by LHAASO

TL;DR

LHAASO detected two TeV gamma-ray outbursts from NGC 1275, revealing rapid variability and spectral characteristics, advancing understanding of gamma-ray emission in radio galaxies.

Contribution

This work reports the first detection of TeV gamma-ray outbursts from NGC 1275 by LHAASO, including spectral analysis and variability characterization.

Findings

Detected two gamma-ray outbursts with high significance

Observed spectral energy distribution fitted by a power-law

Identified variability timescale of days

Abstract

The Water Cherenkov Detector Array (WCDA) is one of the components of Large High Altitude Air Shower Observatory (LHAASO) and can monitor any sources over two-thirds of the sky for up to 7 hours per day with >98\% duty cycle. In this work, we report the detection of two outbursts of the Fanaroff-Riley I radio galaxy NGC 1275 that were detected by LHAASO-WCDA between November 2022 and January 2023 with statistical significance of 5.2~$\sigma$ and 8.3~$\sigma$. The observed spectral energy distribution in the range from 500 GeV to 3 TeV is fitted by a power-law with a best-fit spectral index of $\alpha=-3.37\pm0.52$ and $-3.35\pm0.29$, respectively. The outburst flux above 0.5~TeV was ($4.55\pm 4.21)\times~10^{-11}~\rm cm^{-2}~s^{-1}$ and ($3.45\pm 1.78)\times~10^{-11}~\rm cm^{-2}~s^{-1}$, corresponding to 60\%, 45\% of Crab Nebula flux. Variation analysis reveals the variability time-scale of days at the TeV energy band. A simple test by one-zone synchrotron self-Compton model reproduces the data in the gamma-ray band well.