Intergalactic Magnetic Fields and Gamma Ray Observations of Extreme TeV Blazars

Abstract

The intergalactic magnetic field (IGMF) in cosmic voids can be indirectly probed through its effect on electromagnetic cascades initiated by a source of TeV gamma-rays, such as active galactic nuclei (AGN). AGN that are sufficiently luminous at TeV energies, "extreme TeV blazars" can produce detectable levels of secondary radiation from inverse Compton (IC) scattering of the electrons in the cascade, provided that the IGMF is not too large. We review recent work in the literature which utilizes this idea to derive constraints on the IGMF for three TeV-detected blazars-1ES 0229+200, 1ES 1218+304, and RGB J0710+591, and we also investigate four other hard-spectrum TeV blazars in the same framework. Through a recently developed detailed 3D particle-tracking Monte Carlo code, incorporating all major effects of QED and cosmological expansion, we research effects of major uncertainties such as the spectral properties of the source, uncertainty in the UV - far IR extragalactic background light (EBL), undersampled Very High Energy (VHE; energy > 100 GeV) coverage, past history of gamma-ray emission, source vs. observer geometry, and jet AGN Doppler factor. The implications of these effects on the recently reported lower limits of the IGMF are thoroughly examined to conclude that presently available data are compatible with a zero IGMF hypothesis.

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• Progress on Cosmological Magnetic Fields
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• The Gamma-Ray Window to Intergalactic Magnetism
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• Search for Magnetically Broadened Cascade Emission From Blazars with VERITAS
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• Multimessenger Constraints on Intergalactic Magnetic Fields from the Flare of TXS 0506+056
• Physics of cosmological cascades and observable properties
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• Primordial magnetic helicity evolution with a homogeneous magnetic field from inflation
• A Gaussian Process Regression Reveals No Evidence for Planets Orbiting Kapteyn's Star
• Probing large-scale magnetism with the Cosmic Microwave Background
• The scalar, vector, and tensor modes in gravitational wave turbulence simulations
• Properties of the Intergalactic Magnetic Field Constrained by Gamma-ray Observations of Gamma-Ray Bursts
• Constraining the Fraction of Core-Collapse Supernovae Harboring Choked Jets with High-energy Neutrinos
• Sensitivity of the Cherenkov Telescope Array to the Detection of Intergalactic Magnetic Fields
• Constraints on the intergalactic magnetic field from $\gamma$-ray observations of GRB 190114C
• Extragalactic magnetic fields unlikely generated at the electroweak phase transition
• Effect of axion-like particles on the spectrum of the extragalactic gamma-ray background
• Can we constrain the extragalactic magnetic field from very high energy observations of GRB 190114C?
• Mean Energy Density of Photogenerated Magnetic Fields Throughout the Epoch of Reionization
• Modelling the propagation of very-high-energy gamma rays with the CRbeam code: Comparison with CRPropa and ELMAG codes
• Constraints on the extragalactic magnetic field strength from blazar spectra based on 145 months of Fermi-LAT observations
• Constraints on the intergalactic magnetic field strength from $\gamma$-ray observations of GRB 221009A
• On the magnetoionic environments of fast radio bursts
• On conservative models of "the pair-production anomaly" in blazar spectra at Very High Energies
• Observable spectral and angular distributions of $\gamma$-rays from extragalactic ultrahigh energy cosmic ray accelerators: the case of extreme TeV blazars
• Inflationary magnetogenesis: solving the strong coupling and its non-Gaussian signatures
• Probing Reheating Phase via Non-Helical Magnetogenesis and Secondary Gravitational Waves
• Probing the IGMF with the next generation Cherenkov telescopes
• Minimal Magnetogenesis: The Role of Inflationary Perturbations and ALPs, and Its Gravitational Wave Signatures
• Cosmological chirality and magnetic fields from parity violating particle decays
• Nonthermal Radiation of the Extreme TeV Blazar 1ES 0229+200 from Electromagnetic Cascades on Infrared Photon Field
• Studies of Extragalactic Background Light with TeV BL Lac Objects
• Testing models of extragalactic $\gamma$-ray propagation using observations of extreme blazars in GeV and TeV energy ranges
• VERITAS and VLBA Observations of HESS J1943+213