Title

Veritas observations of the unusual extragalactic transient swift j164449.3+573451

Authors

P. T. Reynolds, Department of Physical Sciences, Cork Institute of Technology, Bishopstown, Cork, Ireland
et al

Document Type

Article

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Disciplines

Astrophysics and Astronomy | Cosmology, Relativity, and Gravity | External Galaxies | Other Astrophysics and Astronomy | Stars, Interstellar Medium and the Galaxy

Publication Details

Astrophysical Journal Letters

Abstract

We report on very high energy (>100 GeV) gamma-ray observations of Swift J164449.3+573451, an unusual transient object first detected by the Swift Observatory and later detected by multiple radio, optical, and X-ray observatories. A total exposure of 28 hr was obtained on Swift J164449.3+573451 with the Very Energetic Radiation Imaging Telescope Array System (VERITAS) during 2011 March 28-April 15. We do not detect the source and place a differential upper limit on the emission at 500 GeV during these observations of 1.4 × 10–12 erg cm–2 s–1 (99% confidence level). We also present time-resolved upper limits and use a flux limit averaged over the X-ray flaring period to constrain various emission scenarios that can accommodate both the radio-through-X-ray emission detected from the source and the lack of detection by VERITAS.

Recommended Citation

Aliu, E., Arlen, T., Aune, T., Beilicke, M., Benbow, W., Böttcher, M., Bouvier, A., Bradbury, S.M., Buckley, J.H., Bugaev, V., Cannon, A., Cesarini, A., Ciupik, L., Collins-Hughes, E., Connolly, M.P., Cui, W., Dickherber, R., Errando, M., Falcone, A., Finley, J.P., Fortson, L., Furniss, A., Galante, N., Gall, D., Gillanders, G.H., Godambe, S., Griffin, S., Grube, J., Gyuk, G., Hanna, D., Holder, J., Huan, H., Hughes, G., Hui, C.M., Humensky, T.B., Kaaret, P., Karlsson, N., Kertzman, M., Kieda, D., Krawczynski, H., Krennrich, F., Madhavan, A.S., Maier, G., Majumdar, P., McArthur, S., McCann, A., Moriarty, P., Mukherjee, R., Ong, R.A., Orr, M., Otte, A.N., Park, N., Perkins, J.S., Pichel, A., Pohl, M., Prokoph, H., Quinn, J., Ragan, K., Reyes, L.C., Reynolds, P.T., Roache, E., Rose, H.J., Ruppel, J., Saxon, D.B., Schroedter, M., Sembroski, G.H., Skole, C., Smith, A.W., Staszak, D., Tešić, G., Theiling, M., Thibadeau, S., Tsurusaki, K., Tyler, J., Varlotta, A., Vincent, S., Vivier, M., Wakely, S.P., Ward, J.E., Weinstein, A., Weisgarber, T. and Williams, D.A. (2011). VERITAS OBSERVATIONS OF THE UNUSUAL EXTRAGALACTIC TRANSIENT SWIFT J164449.3+573451. The Astrophysical Journal, 738(2), p.L30. Available at: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/2041-8205/738/2/L30 ‌