Study of VHE gamma ray emission from AGN using HAGAR
Amit Shukla and HAGAR collaboration
Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Bangalore
E-mail: amit@iiap.res.in

Abstract. Blazars are a sub-class of Active galactic nuclei (AGN) whose narrow radiation beams, generated in relativistic jets, are pointed directly towards us. It is believed that this radiation is a result of accretion onto the supermassive black hole at the center of the host galaxy. This radiation often extends from radio to gamma-rays. The radiation mechanism of very high energy gamma ray emission from blazars and other crucial parameters like magnetic field, size of the emitting region are not well understood yet. To understand above mentioned properties of the blazars, we observed five nearby TeV gamma ray emitting blazars (Mrk421, Mrk501, 1ES2344+514, 1ES1218+304 and 3C454.3) and one radio galaxy (M87) using High Altitude GAmma Ray (HAGAR) telescopes. HAGAR is an array of seven telescopes located at Hanle to detect Cherenkov light caused by extensive air showers initiated by gamma rays. Measuring relative arrival time delays and densities of Cherenkov photons at individual telescopes, the arrival direction and energy of incident gamma rays can be reconstructed. HAGAR telescope array has collected more than 180 hrs of AGN data in last two years. A detailed analysis procedure to extract gamma ray signal from HAGAR data will be discussed and preliminary results on these AGN will be presented.