A three-year multi-wavelength study of the very-high-energy γ-ray blazar 1es 0229+200

The high-frequency-peaked BL Lacertae object 1ES 0229+200 is a relatively distant (z = 0.1396), hard-spectrum (Gamma similar to 2.5), very-high-energy (VHE; E > 100 GeV) emitting gamma-ray blazar. VHE measurements of this active galactic nucleus have been used to place constraints on the intensity of the extragalactic background light and the intergalactic magnetic field (IGMF). A multi-wavelength study of this object centered around VHE observations by Very Energetic Radiation Imaging Telescope Array System (VERITAS) is presented. This study obtained, over a period of three years, an 11.7 standard deviation detection and an average integral flux F(E > 300 GeV) = (23.3 +/- 2.8(stat) +/- 5.8(sys)) x 10(-9) photons m(-2) s(-1), or 1.7% of the Crab Nebula's flux (assuming the Crab Nebula spectrum measured by H. E. S. S). Supporting observations from Swift and RXTE are analyzed. The Swift observations are combined with previously published Fermi observations and the VHE measurements to produce an overall spectral energy distributionwhich is then modeled assuming one-zone synchrotron-self-Compton emission. The chi(2) probability of the TeV flux being constant is 1.6%. This, when considered in combination with measured variability in the X-ray band, and the demonstrated variability of many TeV blazars, suggests that the use of blazars such as 1ES 0229+200 for IGMF studies may not be straightforward and challenges models that attribute hard TeV spectra to secondary gamma-ray production along the line of sight