The first gamma-ray outburst of a narrow-line Seyfert 1 galaxy: the case of PMN J0948+0022 in 2010 July

We report on a multiwavelength campaign for the radio-loud narrow-line Seyfert 1 (NLS1) galaxy PMN J0948+0022 (z= 0.5846) performed in 2010 July–September and triggered by a high-energy γ-ray outburst observed by the Large Area Telescope onboard the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. The peak flux in the 0.1–100 GeV energy band exceeded, for the first time in this type of source, the value of ~10^(−6) photon cm^(−2) s^(−1), corresponding to an observed luminosity of ~10^(48) erg s^(−1). Although the source was too close to the Sun position to organize a densely sampled follow-up, it was possible to gather some multiwavelength data that confirmed the state of high activity across the sampled electromagnetic spectrum. The comparison of the spectral energy distribution of the NLS1 PMN J0948+0022 with that of a typical blazar – such as 3C 273 – shows that the power emitted at γ-rays is extreme.