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Very-High-Energy ?-Ray Observations of the Blazar 1ES 2344+514 with VERITAS

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Abstract

  • We present very-high-energy ?-ray observations of the BL Lac object 1ES 2344 514 taken by the Very Energetic Radiation Imaging Telescope Array System between 2007 and 2015. 1ES 2344 514 is detected with a statistical significance above the background of 20.8? in 47.2 h (livetime) of observations, making this the most comprehensive very-high-energy study of 1ES 2344 514 to date. Using these observations, the temporal properties of 1ES 2344 514 are studied on short and long times-scales. We fit a constant-flux model to nightly and seasonally binned light curves and apply a fractional variability test to determine the stability of the source on different time-scales. We reject the constant-flux model for the 2007-2008 and 2014-2015 nightly binned light curves and for the long-term seasonally binned light curve at the >3? level. The spectra of the time-averaged emission before and after correction for attenuation by the extragalactic background light are obtained. The observed time-averaged spectrum above 200 GeV is satisfactorily fitted (?2/NDF = 7.89/6) by a power-law function with an index ? = 2.46 ± 0.06stat ± 0.20sys and extends to at least 8 TeV. The extragalactic-background-light-deabsorbed spectrum is adequately fit (?2/NDF = 6.73/6) by a power-law function with an index ? = 2.15 ± 0.06stat ± 0.20sys while an F-test indicates that the power law with an exponential cut-off function provides a marginally better fit (?2/NDF = 2.56/5) at the 2.1? level. The source location is found to be consistent with the published radio location and its spatial extent is consistent with a point source.

Publication Date

  • 2017

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