No Arabic abstract
Axion-like particles are hypothetical new light (sub-eV) bosons predicted in some extensions of the Standard Model of particle physics. In astrophysical environments comprising high-energy gamma rays and turbulent magnetic fields, the existence of axion-like particles can modify the energy spectrum of the gamma rays. This modification would take the form of an irregular behavior of the energy spectrum in a limited energy range. Data from the H.E.S.S. observations of the distant BL Lac PKS 2155-304 are used to derive conservative upper limits on the strength of the axion-like particle coupling to photons. This study gives rise to the first exclusions on axion-like particles from gamma-ray astronomy. The derived constraints apply to both light pseudo-scalar and scalar bosons that couple to the electromagnetic field.
Axionlike particles (ALPs) are hypothetical light (sub-eV) bosons predicted in some extensions of the Standard Model of particle physics. In astrophysical environments comprising high-energy gamma rays and turbulent magnetic fields, the existence of ALPs can modify the energy spectrum of the gamma rays for a sufficiently large coupling between ALPs and photons. This modification would take the form of an irregular behavior of the energy spectrum in a limited energy range. Data from the H.E.S.S. observations of the distant BL Lac object PKS 2155-304 (z = 0.116) are used to derive upper limits at the 95% C.L. on the strength of the ALP coupling to photons, $g_{gamma a} < 2.1times 10^{-11}$ GeV$^{-1}$ for an ALP mass between 15 neV and 60 neV. The results depend on assumptions on the magnetic field around the source, which are chosen conservatively. The derived constraints apply to both light pseudoscalar and scalar bosons that couple to the electromagnetic field.
The High Energy Stereoscopic System (H.E.S.S.) has observed the high-frequency peaked BL Lac object PKS2155-304 in 2003 between October 19 and November 26 in Very High Energy (VHE) gamma-rays (E>160 GeV for these observations). Observations were carried out simultaneously with the Proportional Counter Array (PCA) on board the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer satellite (RXTE), the Robotic Optical Transient Search Experiment (ROTSE) and the Nancay decimetric radiotelescope (NRT). Intra-night variability is seen in the VHE band, the source being detected with a high significance on each night it was observed. Variability is also found in the X-ray and optical bands on kilosecond timescales, along with flux-dependent spectral changes in the X-rays. The average H.E.S.S. spectrum shows a very soft power law shape with a photon index of 3.37+/-0.07(stat)+/-0.10(sys). The energy outputs in the 2-10 keV and in the VHE gamma-ray range are found to be similar, with the X-rays and the optical fluxes at a level comparable to some of the lowest historical measurements, indicating that PKS2155-304 was in a low or quiescent state during the observations. Both a leptonic and a hadronic model are used to derive source parameters from these observations.
We investigate the axion like particle (ALP)-photon oscillation effect in the high energy $gamma$-ray spectra of PG 1553+113 and PKS 2155-304 measured by Fermi-LAT and H.E.S.S.. The choice of extragalactic background light (EBL) model, which induces the attenuate effect in observed $gamma$-ray spectra, would affect the ALP implication. For the ordinary EBL model that prefers a null hypothesis, we set constraint on the ALP-photon coupling constant at 95% C.L. as $g_{agamma}lesssim 5times 10^{-11} ~rm{GeV}^{-1}$ for the ALP mass $sim 10$ neV. We also consider the CIBER observation of the cosmic infrared radiation, which shows an excess at the wave wavelength of $sim 1~mu$m after the substraction of foregrounds. The high energy gamma-rays from extragalactic sources at high redshifts would suffer from a more significant attenuate effect caused by this excess. In this case, we find that the ALP-photon oscillation would improve the fit to the observed spectra of PKS 2155-304 and PG 1553+113 and find a favored parameter region at 95% C.L..
PKS 2155-304 is one of the brightest blazar located in Southern Hemisphere, monitored with H.E.S.S. since the first light of the experiment. Here we report multiwavelength monitoring observations collected during the period of 2015-2016 with H.E.S.S.,Fermi-LAT, Swift-XRT, Swift-UVOT, and ATOM. Two years of multiwavelength data with very good temporal coverage allowed to characterize broadband emission observed from the region of PKS 2155-304 and study potential multifrequency correlations. During the period of monitoring, PKS 2155-304 revealed complex multiwavelength variability with two outbursts characterized by completely different multiband properties. The 2015 activity of the blazar is characterized by a flare observed at all wavelengths studied. The broadband emission observed during the outburst is well correlated without any time lags. Contrary to 2015, in 2016, only orphan outburst in the optical and ultraviolet wavelengths was observed. Such an orphan activity is reported for the first time for the blazar PKS 2155-304.
We report the first hard X-ray observations with NuSTAR of the BL Lac type blazar PKS 2155-304, augmented with soft X-ray data from XMM-Newton and gamma-ray data from the Fermi Large Area Telescope, obtained in April 2013 when the source was in a very low flux state. A joint NuSTAR and XMM spectrum, covering the energy range 0.5 - 60 keV, is best described by a model consisting of a log-parabola component with curvature beta = 0.3(+0.2,-0.1) and a (local) photon index 3.04 +/- 0.15 at photon energy of 2 keV, and a hard power-law tail with photon index 2.2 +/- 0.4. The hard X-ray tail can be smoothly joined to the quasi-simultaneous gamma-ray spectrum by a synchrotron self-Compton component produced by an electron distribution with index p = 2.2. Assuming that the power-law electron distribution extends down to the minimum electron Lorentz factor gamma_min = 1 and that there is one proton per electron, an unrealistically high total jet power L_p of roughly 10^47 erg/s is inferred. This can be reduced by two orders of magnitude either by considering a significant presence of electron-positron pairs with lepton-to-proton ratio of at least 30, or by introducing an additional, low-energy break in the electron energy distribution at the electron Lorentz factor gamma_br1 of roughly 100. In either case, the jet composition is expected to be strongly matter-dominated.