Discovery of very high energy gamma-rays from the flat spectrum radio quasar 3C 279 with the MAGIC telescope

M. Errando, R. Bock, D. Kranich, E. Lorenz, P. Majumdar, M. Mariotti, D. Mazin, E. Prandini, F. Tavecchio, M. Teshima, R. Wagner, for the MAGIC Collaboration

Published 2009-01-21Version 1

3C 279 is one of the best studied flat spectrum radio quasars located at a comparatively large redshift of z = 0.536. Observations in the very high energy band of such distant sources were impossible until recently due to the expected steep energy spectrum and the strong gamma-ray attenuation by the extragalactic background light photon field, which conspire to make the source visible only with a low energy threshold. Here the detection of a significant gamma-ray signal from 3C 279 at very high energies (E > 75 GeV) during a flare in early 2006 is reported. Implications of its energy spectrum on the current understanding of the extragalactic background light and very high energy gamma-ray emission mechanism models are discussed.