Probing the Diffuse Optical-IR Background with TeV Blazars Detected with the MAGIC Telescopes

Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Sciences

Vazquez Acosta, Monica¹  Domí¹  Prandini, Elisa²  Mazin, Daniel³  Vanzo, Gaia³  Nievas Rosillo, Mireia⁴  Moralejo, Abelardo⁶  Hassan, Tarek⁷  Fallah Ramazani, Vandad⁸  nguez, Alberto⁹ 

[1] Departamento de FíDipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia “G. Galilei”, University of Padova, Italy;IFAE, The Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology, Spain;Institute for Cosmic Ray Research, University of Tokyo, Japan;Instituto de AstrofíMax Planck Institute for Physics, Germany;Tuorla observatory, University of Turku, Finland;mica, Universidad Complutense, Spain;sica Atósica de Canarias, Spain

关键词: Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN);    Blazars;    Extragalactic Background Light (EBL);    Relativistic jets;    MAGIC telescopes;    Gamma Rays;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fspas.2017.00050

学科分类：空间科学

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

Blazars are radio loud quasars whose jet points toward the observer. The observed emission is mostly non-thermal, dominated by the jet emission, and in some cases extends up to the very high energy gamma rays (VHE; E $>$ 100 GeV). To date, more than 60 blazars have been detected at VHE mainly with ground-based imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes (IACTs) such as MAGIC, H.E.S.S. and VERITAS. Energetic photons from a blazar may interact with the diffuse optical and IR background (the extragalactic background light, EBL) leaving an imprint on the blazar energy spectrum. This effect can be used to constrain the EBL, with basic assumptions on the intrinsic energy spectrum. Current generation of IACTs is providing valuable measurements of the EBL density and energy spectrum from optical to infrared frequencies. In this contribution, we present the latest results obtained with the data taken with the MAGIC telescopes: using 32 spectra from 12 blazars, the scale factor of the optical density predicted by the EBL model from Dom\'{\i}nguez et al. (2011) is constrained to be 0.95 (+0.11, -0.12)$_{stat}$ (+0.16, -0.07)$_{sys}$, where a value of 1 means the perfect match with the model.

【 授权许可】

CC BY