Related papers: Understanding the Spectra of TeV Blazars: Implicat…
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…
Energy spectra of gamma-ray blazars may contain an imprint from the cosmic infrared background radiation due to gamma-ray absorption (pair-production) by soft photons constituting the extragalactic background light (EBL). The signature of…
The spectra of very high energy gamma-radiation from distant extragalactic objects suffer significant deformations during the passage of primary gamma-rays through the intergalactic medium. The recently reported fluxes of diffuse infrared…
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…
Photons with very high energy up to TeV (VHE) emitted from active galactic nuclei (AGNs) provide some invaluable information of the origin of $\gam$-ray emission. Although 66 blazars have been detected by {\it EGRET}, only three low…
Observations of very-high-energy (VHE, E > 250 GeV) gamma-ray emission from several blazars at z > 0.1 have placed stringent constraints on the elusive spectrum and intensity of the intergalactic infrared background radiation (IIBR).…
Very high energy (VHE) gamma-ray emission from a distant source (z >~0.2) can be efficiently absorbed my means of the electron-positron pair creation process. Analyses of the unabsorbed spectra imply that the intrinsic TeV emission of some…
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 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…
The non-thermal spectra of blazars, observed from radio to GeV/TeV gamma-rays, reveal two pronounced components, both produced by radiation by energetic particles. One peaks in the IR - to soft X-ray band, radiating via the synchrotron…
Very high energy (~ TeV) $\gamma$-rays from blazars are attenuated by photons from the extragalactic background light (EBL). Observations of blazars can therefore provide an ideal opportunity for determining the EBL intensity if their…
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…
If the high-energy emission from TeV blazars is produced by the Synchrotron Self-Compton (SSC) mechanism, then simultaneous X-ray and Gamma-ray observations of these objects are a powerful probe of the electron (and/or positron) populations…
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…
We use the new results of the HEGRA detector on the TeV gamma-ray emission from MKN 501 to set upper limits on the energy density of the cosmic infrared background (CIRB). Contrary to previous interpretations of the gamma-ray spectrum of…
The BL Lac object Mkn 501 has shown very high emission in TeV gamma-rays from March to October, 1997. During this period the source was continuously monitored with the HEGRA stereoscopic system of 4 imaging air Cherenkov telescopes for a…
Very high energy gamma-ray data obtained by CAT and HEGRA from active galactic nucleus Mkn 501 are used to constrain the cosmic Mid-Infrared background. While the entire infrared and submillimeter spectrum shape based on models has been…
The COMPTEL and EGRET detectors aboard the Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory measured an extragalactic gamma-ray background extending from MeV energies up to about 100 GeV. Calculations performed making reasonable assumptions indicate that…
Gamma rays have been observed from two blazars at TeV energies. One of these, Markarian 421, has been observed also at GeV energies and has roughly equal luminosity per decade at GeV and TeV energies. Photon-photon pair production on the…
The launch of the Fermi gamma-ray space telescope and the imaging air Cerenkov telescopes H.E.S.S., MAGIC, and VERITAS have substantially transformed our knowledge of gamma-ray sources in the last decade. The extragalactic gamma-ray sky is…