Extreme blazars

Abstract

The recent Cherenkov telescope observations and detections of the BL Lac objects Mkn 421, Mkn 501, 1ES 2344+514, PKS 2155--304 and possibly 1ES 1959+658 have shown that there exists a subclass of BL Lac objects emitting a substantial fraction of their power between the GeV and the TeV bands. These are the sources whose synchrotron spectrum peaks, in a $\nu$--$\nu F_{\nu }$ representation, in the EUV or X-ray band. Here I suggest that even more extreme BL Lacs can exist, whose synchrotron spectrum peaks in the MeV band. These sources should emit a substantial fraction of their power in the TeV band by the inverse Compton process. Limits to the maximum possible emitted frequencies are discussed.

15 pages, 6 figures, invited paper at the VERITAS workshop on TeV Astrophysics of Extragalactic Objects

References in corpus (4)

• A Unifying View of the Spectral Energy Distributions of Blazars
• A theoretical unifying scheme for gamma-ray bright blazars
• BeppoSAX Observations of Unprecedented Synchrotron Activity in the BL Lac Object Mkn 501
• Discovery of >350 GeV Gamma Rays from the BL Lacertae Object 1ES 2344+514

Cited by in corpus (21)

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• The Disc-Jet Relation in Strong-Lined Blazars
• Precession-induced Variability in AGN Jets and OJ 287
• Search for the Identification of 3EG J1835+5918: Evidence for a New Type of High-Energy Gamma-ray Source
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• Search for a Point-Source Counterpart of the Unidentified Gamma-Ray Source TeV J2032+4130 in Cygnus
• Multiwavelength Properties of Blazars
• Testing emission models on the extreme blazar 2WHSP J073326.7+515354 detected at very high energies with the MAGIC telescopes
• Search for High Energy Gamma Rays from an X-ray Selected Blazar Sample
• Extreme & High Synchrotron Peaked Blazars at the limit of Fermi-LAT detectability: the $\gamma$-ray spectrum of 1BIGB sources
• Probing an X-ray flare pattern in Mrk 421 induced by multiple stationary shocks: a solution to the bulk Lorentz factor crisis
• Broadband Study of High-Synchrotron-Peaked BL Lac Object 1ES 1218+304
• Machine Learning applied to Multifrequency Data in Astrophysics: Blazar Classification
• First detection of VHE gamma-ray emission from TXS~1515--273, study of its X-ray variability and spectral energy distribution
• An XMM-Newton catalogue of BL Lacs