POWERFUL HIGH-ENERGY EMISSION OF THE REMARKABLE BL LAC OBJECT S5 0716+714

BL Lac objects of the intermediate subclass (IBLs) are known to emit a substantial fraction of their power in the energy range 0.1 -10 GeV. Detecting gamma-ray emission from such sources provides therefore a direct probe of the emission mechanisms and of the underlying powerhouse. The gamma-ray satellite, AGILE, detected the remarkable IBL S5 0716+ 714 (z similar or equal to 0.3) during a high state in the period from 2007 September-October, marked by two very intense flares reaching peak fluxes of 200 x 10(-8) photons cm(-2) s(-1) above 100 MeV, with simultaneous optical and X-ray observations. We present here a theoretical model for the two major flares and discuss the overall energetics of the source. We conclude that 0716+714 is among the brightest BL Lac's ever detected at gamma-ray energies. Because of its high power and lack of signs for ongoing accretion or surrounding gas, the source is an ideal candidate to test the maximal power extractable from a rotating supermassive black hole via the pure Blandford-Znajek (BZ) mechanism. We find that during the 2007. gamma-ray flares 0716+714 approached or just exceeded the upper limit set by BZ for a black hole of mass 10(9)M(circle dot).