VHE Gamma-Ray Induced Pair Cascades in the Radiation Fields of Dust Tori of AGN: Application to Cen A

Abstract

The growing number of extragalactic high-energy (HE, E > 100 MeV) and very-high-energy (VHE, E > 100 GeV) gamma-ray sources that do not belong to the blazar class suggests that VHE gamma-ray production may be a common property of most radio-loud Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN). In a previous paper, we have investigated the signatures of Compton-supported pair cascades initiated by VHE gamma-ray absorption in monochromatic radiation fields, dominated by Ly-alpha line emission from the Broad Line Region. In this paper, we investigate the interaction of nuclear VHE gamma-rays with the thermal infrared radiation field from a circumnuclear dust torus. Our code follows the spatial development of the cascade in full 3-dimensional geometry. We provide a model fit to the broadband SED of the dust-rich, gamma-ray loud radio galaxy Cen A and show that typical blazar-like jet parameters may be used to model the broadband SED, if one allows for an additional cascade contribution to the Fermi gamma-ray emission.

Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal

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• EBL effect on the observation of multi-TeV flaring of 2009 from Markarian 501
• Absorption effects in the blazar's gamma-ray spectra due to luminous stars crossing the jet
• Ultra High Energy Neutrino Event KM3-230213A as a Signal of Electroweak Vacuum Turbulence in Merging Black Hole Binaries
• Probing cluster environments of blazars through gamma-gamma absorption