Related papers: Intergalactic absorption and blazar gamma-ray spec…
We derive a new and user friendly simple analytic approximation for determining the effect of intergalactic absorption in the energy range 0.2-2 TeV and the redshift range 0.05-0.4. In these ranges, the form of the absorption coeeficient is…
The absorption of gamma-rays in the intergalactic medium due to the EBL (Extragalactic Background Light) causes the observed blazar spectrum to be fainter and softer than their intrinsic state. It could thus be expected to see an effective…
The absorption of TeV $\gamma$-ray photons produced in relativistic jets by surrounding soft photon fields is a long-standing problem of jet physics. In some cases the most likely emission site close to the central black hole is ruled out…
The pair-production absorption of high-energy gamma-rays by intergalactic low-energy photons is expected to produce a high-energy cutoff in the spectra of extragalactic sources which is a sensitive function of redshift. We first discuss the…
The recent HEGRA observations of the blazar Mkn 501 show strong curvature in the very high energy gamma-ray spectrum. Applying the gamma-ray opacity derived from an empirically based model of the intergalactic infrared background radiation…
Inverse-Compton cascades initiated by energetic gamma rays (E>100 GeV) enhance the GeV emission from bright, extragalactic TeV sources. The absence of this emission from bright TeV blazars has been used to constrain the intergalactic…
The last years have seen a revolution in ground-based gamma-ray detectors. We can now detect the spectra of nearby TeV blazars like Mrk 421 and 501 out to approximately 20 TeV, and during the strongest flares, we can now follow fluctuations…
We derive a relation for the steepening of blazar gamma-ray spectra between the multi-GeV Fermi energy range and the TeV energy range observed by atmospheric Cerenkov telescopes. The change in spectral index is produced by two effects: (1)…
We present a new calculation of the intergalactic gamma-ray absorption coefficient as a function of both energy and redshift. In reexamining this problem, we make use of a new, empirically based calculation (as opposed to previous model…
We discuss the problem of the absorption of very high-energy gamma-rays by pair production interactions with extragalactic photons which originate from stellar emission in the near IR-UV and reradiation of starlight in the mid- and far-IR.…
The expected opacity of the intergalactic space limits the mean free path of TeV gamma rays to dozens of Megaparsecs. However, TeV photons from numerous more distant sources have been detected. This might be interpreted, in each particular…
The detection of TeV gamma-rays from the blazar H 1426+428 at an integral flux level of (4 +- 2(stat) +- 1(syst)) 10^(-12) erg cm^(-2) s^(-1) above 1 TeV with the HEGRA imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescope system is reported. H 1426+428…
We discuss the determination of the intergalactic pair-production absorption coefficient (Stecker & De Jager 1998) making use of an empirically based calculation of the IR background spectrum (Malkan & Stecker 1998) which agrees well with…
Recent observations by ground-based gamma-ray telescopes have led to the publication of catalogs listing sources observed in the TeV and PeV energy ranges. Photons of such high energy are strongly absorbed during propagation over…
Several high-frequency peaked BL Lac objects such as Mrk 501 are strong TeV emitters. However, a significant fraction of the TeV gamma rays emitted are likely to be absorbed in interactions with the diffuse IR background, yielding…
With the arrival of powerful, ground-based gamma-ray detectors, we can now begin to seriously probe, via simultaneous X-ray/TeV observations, the origin of the gamma-ray emission in the blazars Mrk 421 and 501. If the synchrotron-Compton…
We calculate the absorption of 10-500 GeV gamma-rays at high redshifts. This calculation requires the determination of the high-redshift evolution of the intergalactic starlight photon field, including its IR-UV spectral energy…
The observed spectra of blazars, their intrinsic emission, and the underlying populations of radiating particles are intimately related. The use of these sources as probes of the extragalactic infrared background, a prospect propelled by…
Blazars with redshifts z<0.1 are likely candidates for detection at energies in the range 300 GeV - 50 TeV with Cerenkov telescopes and scintillator arrays. We present gamma-ray flux predictions for a sample of 15 nearby flat-spectrum radio…
Recent gamma-ray observations of the blazar 1ES 1101-232 (redshift z=0.186) reveal that the unabsorbed TeV spectrum is hard, with spectral index $\alpha \lesssim 0.5$ [$F(\nu) \propto \nu^{-\alpha}$]. We show that simple one-zone…