Session B16 - Neutrino and Gamma Ray Astrophysics.
MIXED session, Saturday morning, April 29
202C, Convention Center
Observations of blazars have revealed hour-scale or shorter flux variations on several occasions, from radio to gamma-ray wavelengths. These very fast flares provide a means of investigating the flaring mechanisms and acceleration processes in these objects and, when observed simultaneously at several wavelengths, provide a means of investigating the environment of the blazar jet and the mechanism which produces the gamma-ray emission. In this talk, I will review recent observations of hour-scale variability at X-ray and TeV energies from the TeV-emitting blazars, Markarian 421 and Markarian 501, and discuss what we have learned about these objects from these observations.