Discovery of the most distant BL Lacertae at very high energies with H.E.S.S.

Y. Becherini
(1,2)

, C. Boisson , M. Cerruti

(3)

(3)

for the H.E.S.S. Collaboration

1 Astroparticule et Cosmologie, CNRS, Universit Paris 7 Denis Diderot, 75205 Paris Cedex 13, France 2 Laboratoire Leprince-Ringuet, cole Polytechnique, CNRS/IN2P3, 91128 Palaiseau, France 3 LUTH, Observatoire de Paris, CNRS, Universit Paris Diderot, 92190 Meudon, France.

KUV 00311-1938 is a very-distant BL Lac, located at a tentative redshift of 0.61 by [1], the evaluation of the absorption lines being difficult. A lower limit on the redshift of 0.51 has been provided with X-Shooter data, see [2] at this conference, confirming the large distance of the source. As different models could explain the distribution of observed VHE photon index versus redshift (as EBL models or photon-axion oscillation scenarios), the detection of high-redshift sources may shed light in understanding the underlying mechanism. Discovery of very-high energy (VHE) emission from KUV 00311-1938 by H.E.S.S.
H.E.S.S. PRELIMINARY

H.E.S.S. observed KUV 00311-1938 between 2009 and 2011 in a campaign leading to 52.5 hours of good-quality data. These were analysed with the analysis procedure described in [3]. An excess of 182 events is found at the position of the source, leading to a discovery significance of 5.1 . The excess found is consistent with the emission from a point-like source. The VHE -ray spectrum is challenging and difficult to derive, given the large EBL attenuation possibly absorbing the intrinsic source spectrum, especially at higher energies. The preliminary time-averaged differential VHE spectrum (shown in the spectral energy distribution (SED)) is derived using a forward-folding technique and is well fit by a power-law function having an index of 3.7 0.4. The flux at the decorrelation energy 0.33 TeV is (3.33 1.02) 10 -12 cm-2 s-1 TeV-1. A cross-check of the spectrum has been derived with the method described in [4] leading to an index is 4.4 1.0. The two spectra, shown below, are statistically compatible though the differences show the difficulties to fit such faint soft-spectrum sources. The H.E.S.S. period-by-period light-curve shows no significant variability.
H.E.S.S. PRELIMINARY
-ray excess 182 Significance 5.1

Gaussian smoothed excess

Fermi/LAT analysis of KUV 00311-1938

KUV 00311-1938 is a bright Fermi source (2FGL J0033.5-1921) present in the 1FGL [5] and 2FGL [6] catalogues. A dedicated unbinned analysis in the energy range [0.3-300] GeV of a 3-year dataset between 2008-08-04 and 2011-08-05 is in good agreement with the results published in the 2FGL. The time-averaged differential high-energy spectrum is well fit by a power-law function with an index of 1.78 0.05 and may be seen in the figures, below. The integrated flux between [0.3-300] GeV is (7.4 0.5) x 10-9 cm-2 s-1. The fit of a constant to the Fermi-LAT lightcurve in bins of 3 months results in a fit probability of ~ 4%.

Analysis of ATOM data

ATOM is a 75-cm optical telescope located at the H.E.S.S. site. KUV 00311-1938 has been regularly observed with the R filter during H.E.S.S. observations. The light-curve shows that a clear variability is present at this frequency.

Swift/XRT analysis
Swift performed four observations in November 2008, one in February and one in May 2009. Unfortunately, none of these archival observations is contemporaneous to the H.E.S.S. observing campaign. The six spectra were fitted with a single power-law model with Galactic absorption fixed at 1.67 x 1020 cm-2. The source presents three clear flux states, shown below in the SED.

Swift/UVOT analysis
The Swift/UVOT instrument took exposures in different filters during the XRT pointings, namely V, B, U, UVW1, UVM2 and UVW2. Counts were extracted from an aperture of 5" radius for all single exposures and all filters, while the background was carefully estimated from different positions more than 27" away from the source.

Fermi-LAT and H.E.S.S. spectra

The Fermi-LAT 2FGL power-law spectrum of KUV 00311-1938 (shown with the black bow-tie) is extrapolated to the highest energies and considered as an upper limit on the unabsorbed flux in the VHE band. The mean flux is then absorbed with the EBL model from [7] for the two redshift values of 0.51 and 0.95 in order to visualize the compatibility of the two predictions with the H.E.S.S. flux level and spectrum. The H.E.S.S. spectrum is shown in red together with the spectrum obtained with the cross-check analysis (blue). Constraints on the redshift using these data are in progress.

Spectral energy distribution

The ensemble of the multi-wavelength data described above are shown on this figure of the Spectral Energy Distribution (SED)

PRELIMINARY
Swift/UVOT 2MASS Swift/XRT Fermi/LAT

PRELIMINARY
Fermi-LAT 3-year dataset

2FGL H.E.S.S.

H.E.S.S.

NVSS z = 0.51 z = 0.95

It was chosen not to try to apply standard emission models such as Synchrotron Self Compton or External Compton, given that the multiwavelength dataset is sparse and above all not simultaneous, whereas the variability in the X-ray range can be clearly seen.

1. Piranomonte et al., A&A 470, (2007) , 787-809 2. Pita S. et al. UVB to near-IR spectroscopic observations of high energy blazars with X-Shooter, at this conference 3. Becherini et al., Astroparticle Physics, 34, 12, (2011), 858 4. De Naurois et Rolland, Astroparticle Physics 32 (2009), 231 5. A. A. Abdo et al. ApJS 188, (2010), 405 6. P.L. Nolan et al., ApJS, 199, (2012), 31 7. Franceschini, A., Rodighiero, G., & Vaccari, M. 2008, A&A, 487, 837

The support of the Namibian authorities and of the University of Namibia in facilitating the construction and operation of HESS is gratefully acknowledged, as is the support by the German Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF), the Max Planck Society, the French Ministry for Research, the CNRS-IN2P3, and the Astroparticle Interdisciplinary Programme of the CNRS, the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), the IPNP of the Charles University, the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education, the South African Department of Science and Technology and National Research Foundation, and by the University of Namibia. We appreciate the excellent work of the technical support staff in Berlin, Durham, Hamburg, Heidelberg, Palaiseau, Paris, Saclay, and in Namibia in the construction and operation of the equipment. This research has made use of the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED) which is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. We acknowledge the use of public data from the Swift data archive. This research has made use of data and software provided by the Fermi Science Support Center, managed by the HEASARC at the Goddard Space Flight Center. This publication makes use of data products from the Two Micron All Sky Survey, which is a joint project of the University of Massachusetts and the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center/California Institute of Technology, funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the National Science Foundation.