The brightest gamma-ray flaring blazar in the sky: AGILE and multi-wavelength observations of 3C 454.3 during November 2010
Creators: name: Vercellone, S.
name: Striani, E.
name: Vittorini, V.
name: Donnarumma, I.
name: Pacciani, L.
name: Pucella, G.
name: Tavani, M.
name: Raiteri, C. M.
name: Villata, M.
name: Romano, P.
name: Fiocchi, M.
name: Bazzano, A.
name: Bianchin, V.
name: Ferrigno, C.
name: Maraschi, L.
name: Pian, E.
name: Türler, M.
name: Ubertini, P.
name: Bulgarelli, A.
name: Chen, A. W.
name: Giuliani, A.
name: Longo, F.
name: Barbiellini, G.
name: Cardillo, M.
name: Cattaneo, P. W.
name: Del Monte, E.
name: Evangelista, Y.
name: Feroci, M.
name: Ferrari, A.
name: Fuschino, F.
name: Gianotti, F.
name: Giusti, M.
name: Lazzarotto, F.
name: Pellizzoni, A.
name: Piano, G.
name: Pilia, M.
name: Rapisarda, M.
name: Rappoldi, A.
name: Sabatini, S.
name: Soffitta, P.
name: Trifoglio, M.
name: Trois, A.
name: Giommi, P.
name: Lucarelli, F.
name: Pittori, C.
name: Santolamazza, P.
name: Verrecchia, F.
name: Agudo, I.
name: Aller, H. D.
name: Aller, M. F.
name: Arkharov, A. A.
name: Bach, U.
name: Berdyugin, A.
name: Borman, G. A.
name: Chigladze, R.
name: Efimov, Yu. S.
name: Efimova, N. V.
name: Gómez, J. L.
name: Gurwell, M. A.
name: McHardy, I. M.
name: Joshi, M.
name: Kimeridze, G. N.
name: Krajci, T.
name: Kurtanidze, O. M.
name: Kurtanidze, S. O.
name: Larionov, V. M.
name: Lindfors, E.
name: Molina, S. N.
name: Morozova, D. A.
name: Nazarov, S. V.
name: Nikolashvili, M. G.
name: Nilsson, K.
name: Pasanen, M.
name: Reinthal, R.
name: Ros, J. A.
name: Sadun, A. C.
name: Sakamoto, T.
name: Sallum, S.
name: Sergeev, S. G.
name: Schwartz, R. D.
name: Sigua, L. A.
name: Sillanpää, A.
name: Sokolovsky, K. V.
name: Strelnitski, V.
name: Takalo, L.
name: Taylor, B.
name: Walker, G.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2011
Subjects: subject: High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: Since 2005, the blazar 3C 454.3 has shown remarkable flaring activity at all frequencies, and during the last four years it has exhibited more than one gamma-ray flare per year, becoming the most active gamma-ray blazar in the sky. We present for the first time the multi-wavelength AGILE, SWIFT, INTEGRAL, and GASP-WEBT data collected in order to explain the extraordinary gamma-ray flare of 3C 454.3 which occurred in November 2010. On 2010 November 20 (MJD 55520), 3C 454.3 reached a peak flux (E&gt;100 MeV) of F_gamma(p) = (6.8+-1.0)E-5 ph/cm2/s on a time scale of about 12 hours, more than a factor of 6 higher than the flux of the brightest steady gamma-ray source, the Vela pulsar, and more than a factor of 3 brighter than its previous super-flare on 2009 December 2-3. The multi-wavelength data make a thorough study of the present event possible: the comparison with the previous outbursts indicates a close similarity to the one that occurred in 2009. By comparing the broadband emission before, during, and after the gamma-ray flare, we find that the radio, optical and X-ray emission varies within a factor 2-3, whereas the gamma-ray flux by a factor of 10. This remarkable behavior is modeled by an external Compton component driven by a substantial local enhancement of soft seed photons.
description: Accepted for publication in ApJ Letters. 18 Pages, 4 Figures, 1 Table