@article{AbeysekaraArchambaultArcheretal.2017, author = {Abeysekara, A. U. and Archambault, S. and Archer, A. and Benbow, Wystan and Bird, Ralph and Buchovecky, M. and Buckley, J. H. and Bugaev, V. and Byrum, K. and Cerruti, M. and Chen, X. and Ciupik, L. and Cui, W. and Dickinson, H. J. and Eisch, J. D. and Errando, M. and Falcone, A. and Feng, Q. and Finley, J. P. and Fleischhack, H. and Fortson, L. and Furniss, A. and Gillanders, G. H. and Griffin, S. and Grube, J. and Hutten, M. and Hakansson, N. and Hanna, D. and Holder, J. and Humensky, T. B. and Johnson, C. A. and Kaaret, P. and Kar, P. and Kertzman, M. and Kieda, D. and Krause, M. and Krennrich, F. and Kumar, S. and Lang, M. J. and Maier, G. and McArthur, S. and McCann, A. and Meagher, K. and Moriarty, P. and Mukherjee, R. and Nguyen, T. and Nieto, D. and Ong, R. A. and Otte, A. N. and Park, N. and Pelassa, V. and Pohl, Martin and Popkow, A. and Pueschel, Elisa and Quinn, J. and Ragan, K. and Reynolds, P. T. and Richards, G. T. and Roache, E. and Rulten, C. and Santander, M. and Sembroski, G. H. and Shahinyan, K. and Staszak, D. and Telezhinsky, Igor O. and Tucci, J. V. and Tyler, J. and Wakely, S. P. and Weiner, O. M. and Weinstein, A. and Wilhelm, Alina and Williams, D. A. and Fegan, S. and Giebels, B. and Horan, D. and Berdyugin, A. and Kuan, J. and Lindfors, E. and Nilsson, K. and Oksanen, A. and Prokoph, H. and Reinthal, R. and Takalo, L. and Zefi, F.}, title = {A Luminous and Isolated Gamma-Ray Flare from the Blazar B2 1215+30}, series = {The astrophysical journal : an international review of spectroscopy and astronomical physics}, volume = {836}, journal = {The astrophysical journal : an international review of spectroscopy and astronomical physics}, number = {2}, publisher = {IOP Publ. Ltd.}, address = {Bristol}, organization = {VERITAS Collaboration;Fermi-LAT Collaboration}, issn = {0004-637X}, doi = {10.3847/1538-4357/836/2/205}, pages = {6}, year = {2017}, abstract = {B2 1215+30 is a BL-Lac-type blazar that was first detected at TeV energies by the MAGIC atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes and subsequently confirmed by the Very Energetic Radiation Imaging Telescope Array System (VERITAS) observatory with data collected between 2009 and 2012. In 2014 February 08, VERITAS detected a large-amplitude flare from B2. 1215+30 during routine monitoring observations of the blazar 1ES. 1218+304, located in the same field of view. The TeV flux reached 2.4 times the Crab Nebula flux with a variability timescale of <3.6 hr. Multiwavelength observations with Fermi-LAT, Swift, and the Tuorla Observatory revealed a correlated high GeV flux state and no significant optical counterpart to the flare, with a spectral energy distribution where the gamma-ray luminosity exceeds the synchrotron luminosity. When interpreted in the framework of a onezone leptonic model, the observed emission implies a high degree of beaming, with Doppler factor delta > 10, and an electron population with spectral index p < 2.3.}, language = {en} } @article{ArchambaultArcherBenbowetal.2016, author = {Archambault, S. and Archer, A. and Benbow, W. and Bird, R. and Biteau, Jonathan and Buchovecky, M. and Buckley, J. H. and Bugaev, V. and Byrum, K. and Cerruti, M. and Chen, Xuhui and Ciupik, L. and Connolly, M. P. and Cui, W. and Eisch, J. D. and Errando, M. and Falcone, A. and Feng, Q. and Finley, J. P. and Fleischhack, H. and Fortin, P. and Fortson, L. and Furniss, A. and Gillanders, G. H. and Griffin, S. and Grube, J. and Gyuk, G. and Huetten, M. and Hakansson, Nils and Hanna, D. and Holder, J. and Humensky, T. B. and Johnson, C. A. and Kaaret, P. and Kar, P. and Kelley-Hoskins, N. and Kertzman, M. and Kieda, D. and Krause, M. and Krennrich, F. and Kumar, S. and Lang, M. J. and Maier, G. and McArthur, S. and McCann, A. and Meagher, K. and Moriarty, P. and Mukherjee, R. and Nguyen, T. and Nieto, D. and Ong, R. A. and Otte, A. N. and Park, N. and Perkins, J. S. and Pichel, A. and Pohl, Martin and Popkow, A. and Pueschel, Elisa and Quinn, J. and Ragan, K. and Reynolds, P. T. and Richards, G. T. and Roache, E. and Rovero, A. C. and Santander, M. and Sembroski, G. H. and Shahinyan, K. and Smith, A. W. and Staszak, D. and Telezhinsky, Igor O. and Tucci, J. V. and Tyler, J. and Vincent, S. and Wakely, S. P. and Weiner, O. M. and Weinstein, A. and Williams, D. A. and Zitzer, B. and Fumagalli, M. and Prochaska, J. X.}, title = {UPPER LIMITS FROM FIVE YEARS OF BLAZAR OBSERVATIONS WITH THE VERITAS CHERENKOV TELESCOPES}, series = {The astronomical journal}, volume = {151}, journal = {The astronomical journal}, publisher = {IOP Publ. Ltd.}, address = {Bristol}, organization = {VERITAS Collaboration}, issn = {0004-6256}, doi = {10.3847/0004-6256/151/6/142}, pages = {19}, year = {2016}, abstract = {Between the beginning of its full-scale scientific operations in 2007 and 2012, the VERITAS Cherenkov telescope array observed more than 130 blazars; of these, 26 were detected as very-high-energy (VHE; E > 100 GeV) gamma-ray sources. In this work, we present the analysis results of a sample of 114 undetected objects. The observations constitute a total live-time of similar to 570 hr. The sample includes several unidentified Fermi-Large Area Telescope (LAT) sources (located at high Galactic latitude) as well as all the sources from the second Fermi-LAT catalog that are contained within the field of view of the VERITAS observations. We have also performed optical spectroscopy measurements in order to estimate the redshift of some of these blazars that do not have spectroscopic distance estimates. We present new optical spectra from the Kast instrument on the Shane telescope at the Lick observatory for 18 blazars included in this work, which allowed for the successful measurement or constraint on the redshift of four of them. For each of the blazars included in our sample, we provide the flux upper limit in the VERITAS energy band. We also study the properties of the significance distributions and we present the result of a stacked analysis of the data set, which shows a 4s excess.}, language = {en} } @article{AbeysekaraBenbowBirdetal.2018, author = {Abeysekara, A. U. and Benbow, Wystan and Bird, Ralph and Brantseg, T. and Brose, Robert and Buchovecky, M. and Buckley, J. H. and Bugaev, V. and Connolly, M. P. and Cui, Wei and Daniel, M. K. and Falcone, A. and Feng, Qi and Finley, John P. and Fortson, L. and Furniss, Amy and Gillanders, Gerard H. and Gunawardhana, Isuru and Huetten, M. and Hanna, David and Hervet, O. and Holder, J. and Hughes, G. and Humensky, T. B. and Johnson, Caitlin A. and Kaaret, Philip and Kar, P. and Kertzman, M. and Krennrich, F. and Lang, M. J. and Lin, T. T. Y. and McArthur, S. and Moriarty, P. and Mukherjee, Reshmi and Ong, R. A. and Otte, Adam Nepomuk and Park, N. and Petrashyk, A. and Pohl, Martin and Pueschel, Elisa and Quinn, J. and Ragan, K. and Reynolds, P. T. and Richards, Gregory T. and Roache, E. and Rulten, C. and Sadeh, I. and Santander, M. and Sembroski, G. H. and Shahinyan, Karlen and Wakely, S. P. and Weinstein, A. and Wells, R. M. and Wilcox, P. and Williams, D. A. and Zitzer, B. and Jorstad, Svetlana G. and Marscher, Alan P. and Lister, Matthew L. and Kovalev, Yuri Y. and Pushkarev, A. B. and Savolainen, Tuomas and Agudo, I. and Molina, S. N. and Gomez, J. L. and Larionov, Valeri M. and Borman, G. A. and Mokrushina, A. A. and Tornikoski, Merja and Lahteenmaki, A. and Chamani, W. and Enestam, S. and Kiehlmann, S. and Hovatta, Talvikki and Smith, P. S. and Pontrelli, P.}, title = {Multiwavelength Observations of the Blazar BL Lacertae}, series = {The astrophysical journal : an international review of spectroscopy and astronomical physics}, volume = {856}, journal = {The astrophysical journal : an international review of spectroscopy and astronomical physics}, number = {2}, publisher = {IOP Publ. Ltd.}, address = {Bristol}, organization = {VERITAS Collaboration}, issn = {0004-637X}, doi = {10.3847/1538-4357/aab35c}, pages = {14}, year = {2018}, abstract = {Combined with measurements made by very-long-baseline interferometry, the observations of fast TeV gamma-ray flares probe the structure and emission mechanism of blazar jets. However, only a handful of such flares have been detected to date, and only within the last few years have these flares been observed from lower-frequency-peaked BL. Lac objects and flat-spectrum radio quasars. We report on a fast TeV gamma-ray flare from the blazar BL. Lacertae observed by the Very Energetic Radiation Imaging Telescope Array System (VERITAS). with a rise time of similar to 2.3 hr and a decay time of similar to 36 min. The peak flux above 200 GeV is (4.2 +/- 0.6) x 10(-6) photon m(-2) s(-1) measured with a 4-minute-binned light curve, corresponding to similar to 180\% of the flux that is observed from the Crab Nebula above the same energy threshold. Variability contemporaneous with the TeV gamma-ray flare was observed in GeV gamma-ray, X-ray, and optical flux, as well as in optical and radio polarization. Additionally, a possible moving emission feature with superluminal apparent velocity was identified in Very Long Baseline Array observations at 43 GHz, potentially passing the radio core of the jet around the time of the gamma-ray flare. We discuss the constraints on the size, Lorentz factor, and location of the emitting region of the flare, and the interpretations with several theoretical models that invoke relativistic plasma passing stationary shocks.}, language = {en} }