Discovery of a GeV Blazar Shining Through the Galactic Plane

Vandenbroucke, J.; Buehler, R.; Ajello, M.; Bechtol, K.; Bellini, A.; Bolte, M.; Cheung, C. C.; Civano, F.; Donato, D.; Fuhrmann, L.; Funk, S.; Healey, S. E.; Hill, A. B.; Knigge, C.; Madejski, G. M.; Romani, R. W.; Santander-García, M.; Shaw, M. S.; Steeghs, D.; Torres, M. A. P.; Van Etten, A.; Williams, K. A.
Referencia bibliográfica

The Astrophysical Journal Letters, Volume 718, Issue 2, pp. L166-L170 (2010).

Fecha de publicación:
8
2010
Número de autores
22
Número de autores del IAC
1
Número de citas
22
Número de citas referidas
17
Descripción
The Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) discovered a new gamma-ray source near the Galactic plane, Fermi J0109+6134, when it flared brightly in 2010 February. The low Galactic latitude (b = -1fdg2) indicated that the source could be located within the Galaxy, which motivated rapid multi-wavelength follow-up including radio, optical, and X-ray observations. We report the results of analyzing all 19 months of LAT data for the source, and of X-ray observations with both Swift and the Chandra X-ray Observatory. We determined the source redshift, z = 0.783, using a Keck Low-Resolution Imaging Spectrometer observation. Finally, we compiled a broadband spectral energy distribution (SED) from both historical and new observations contemporaneous with the 2010 February flare. The redshift, SED, optical line width, X-ray absorption, and multi-band variability indicate that this new GeV source is a blazar seen through the Galactic plane. Because several of the optical emission lines have equivalent width >5 Å, this blazar belongs in the flat-spectrum radio quasar category.