$Fermi$-LAT detection of a transient $\gamma$-ray source in the direction of a distant blazar B3 1428+422 at $z=4.72$

Abstract

We report the detection of a transient $\gamma$-ray source in the direction of B3 1428+422 ($z=4.72$) by analyzing the 110-month {\it Fermi}-LAT Pass 8 data. The new transient $\gamma -$ray source is far away from the Galactic plane and has a rather soft spectrum, in agreement with being a high redshift blazar. We suggest that the newly discovered transient is the $\gamma$-ray counterpart of B3 1428+422, which could be the {\it most distant} GeV source detected so far. The detection of a group of such distant $\gamma -$ray blazars will be helpful to reconstruct the evolution of the luminosity function and to study the extragalactic background light at such high redshifts.

9 pages, 4 figures, ApJL in press