SPECTRAL ANALYSIS OF FERMI -LAT BLAZARS ABOVE 50 GEV

Domínguez, Alberto; Ajello, Marco

doi:10.1088/2041-8205/813/2/L34

Title: SPECTRAL ANALYSIS OF FERMI -LAT BLAZARS ABOVE 50 GEV

Journal Article · Wed Nov 04 00:00:00 EST 2015 · The Astrophysical Journal. Letters (Online)

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1088/2041-8205/813/2/L34· OSTI ID:1354852

Domínguez, Alberto ^[1];

^[2]

Clemson Univ., SC (United States); Univ. Complutense Madrid (Spain)
Clemson Univ., SC (United States)

We present an analysis of the intrinsic (unattenuated by the extragalactic background light, EBL) power-law spectral indices of 128 extragalactic sources detected up to z ~ 2 with the Fermi-Large Area Telescope (LAT) at very high energies (VHEs, E ≥50 GeV). The median of the intrinsic index distribution is 2.20 (versus 2.54 for the observed distribution). We also analyze the observed spectral breaks (i.e., the difference between the VHE and high energy, HE, 100 MeV ≤ E ≤ 300 GeV, spectral indices). The Fermi-LAT has now provided a large sample of sources detected both at VHE and HE with comparable exposure that allows us to test models of extragalactic γ-ray photon propagation. We find that our data are compatible with simulations that include intrinsic blazar curvature and EBL attenuation. There is also no evidence of evolution with redshift of the physics that drives the photon emission in high-frequency synchrotron peak (HSP) blazars. This makes HSP blazars excellent probes of the EBL.

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Research Organization:: SLAC National Accelerator Lab., Menlo Park, CA (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE

Grant/Contract Number:: AC02-76SF00515

OSTI ID:: 1354852

Journal Information:: The Astrophysical Journal. Letters (Online), Vol. 813, Issue 2; ISSN 2041-8213

Publisher:: Institute of Physics (IOP)Copyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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Cited by: 44 works

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