No Arabic abstract
Context. Measurements of the Extragalactic Background Light (EBL) are a fundamental source of information on the collective emission of cosmic sources. Aims. At infrared wavelengths, however, these measurements are precluded by the overwhelming dominance from Interplanetary Dust emission and the Galactic infrared foreground. Only at $lambda > 300 mu$m, where the foregrounds are minimal, has the Infrared EBL (IR EBL) been inferred from analysis of the COBE maps. The present paper aims to assess the possibility of evaluating the IR EBL from a few $mu$m up to the peak of the emission at >100 $mu$m using an indirect method that avoids the foreground problem. Methods. To this purpose we exploit the effect of pair-production from gamma-gamma interaction by considering the highest energy photons emitted by extragalactic sources and their interaction with the IR EBL photons. We simulate observations of a variety of low redshift emitters with the forthcoming Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescope (IACT) arrays (CTA in particular) and water Cherenkov observatories (LHAASO, HAWC, SWGO) to assess their suitability to constrain the EBL at such long wavelengths. Results. We find that, even under the most extremely favorable conditions of huge emission flares, extremely high-energy emitting blazars are not very useful for our purpose because they are much too distant (>100 Mpc the nearest ones, MKN 501 and MKN 421). Observations of more local Very High Energy (VHE) emitting AGNs, like low-redshift radio galaxies (M87, IC 310, Centaurus A), are better suited and will potentially allow us to constrain the EBL up to $lambda simeq 100 mu$m.
Extragalactic background light (EBL) anisotropy traces variations in the total production of photons over cosmic history, and may contain faint, extended components missed in galaxy point source surveys. Infrared EBL fluctuations have been attributed to primordial galaxies and black holes at the epoch of reionization (EOR), or alternately, intra-halo light (IHL) from stars tidally stripped from their parent galaxies at low redshift. We report new EBL anisotropy measurements from a specialized sounding rocket experiment at 1.1 and 1.6 micrometers. The observed fluctuations exceed the amplitude from known galaxy populations, are inconsistent with EOR galaxies and black holes, and are largely explained by IHL emission. The measured fluctuations are associated with an EBL intensity that is comparable to the background from known galaxies measured through number counts, and therefore a substantial contribution to the energy contained in photons in the cosmos.
Prompt emission from the very fluent and nearby (z=0.34) gamma-ray burst GRB 130427A was detected by several orbiting telescopes and by ground-based, wide-field-of-view optical transient monitors. Apart from the intensity and proximity of this GRB, it is exceptional due to the extremely long-lived high-energy (100 MeV to 100 GeV) gamma-ray emission, which was detected by the Large Area Telescope on the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope for ~70 ks after the initial burst. The persistent, hard-spectrum, high-energy emission suggests that the highest-energy gamma rays may have been produced via synchrotron self-Compton processes though there is also evidence that the high-energy emission may instead be an extension of the synchrotron spectrum. VERITAS, a ground-based imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescope array, began follow-up observations of GRB 130427A ~71 ks (~20 hr) after the onset of the burst. The GRB was not detected with VERITAS; however, the high elevation of the observations, coupled with the low redshift of the GRB, make VERITAS a very sensitive probe of the emission from GRB 130427A for E > 100 GeV. The non-detection and consequent upper limit derived place constraints on the synchrotron self-Compton model of high-energy gamma-ray emission from this burst.
The extragalactic background light (EBL), a diffuse photon field in the optical and infrared range, is a record of radiative processes over the Universes history. Spectral measurements of blazars at very high energies ($>$100 GeV) enable the reconstruction of the spectral energy distribution (SED) of the EBL, as the blazar spectra are modified by redshift- and energy-dependent interactions of the gamma-ray photons with the EBL. The spectra of 14 VERITAS-detected blazars are included in a new measurement of the EBL SED that is independent of EBL SED models. The resulting SED covers an EBL wavelength range of 0.56--56 $mu$m, and is in good agreement with lower limits obtained by assuming that the EBL is entirely due to radiation from cataloged galaxies.
When very high-energy photons (VHE, E>100 GeV) propagate over cosmological distances, they interact with background light by pair production. Observations of spectral features in the VHE band of extragalactic sources related to this energy-dependent absorption process with the H.E.S.S. array of Cherenkov telescopes allow measuring the spectral energy distribution (SED) of the extragalactic background light (EBL), otherwise very difficult to determine. Preliminary results on the determination of the SED of the EBL will be presented, based on the measurements of the energy spectra of blazars with H.E.S.S. at redshifts up to z = 0.2. This model independent approach shows that the shape and overall normalization of the EBL SED is accessible.
Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are among the most luminous sources in the universe. The nature of their emission at TeV energies is one of the most relevant open issues related to these events. The temporal and spectral features inferred from the early and late emissions usually known as prompt and afterglow, respectively, can be interpreted within the context of the fireball model. The synchrotron self-Compton process is expected during the afterglow phase. We explain how the theoretical SSC light curves can be compared with hypothetical upper limit located at z=0.3. We show the allowed parameter space of the microphysical parameters and density of the circumburst medium. The most restrictive results are obtained when the SSC process lies in the fast cooling regime