An infrared background-TeV gamma-ray crisis?

By R. Protheroe, H. Meyer. 2000

164 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract We consider the implications of the recent determination of the universal infrared background for the propagation of photons up to 20 TeV from the active galaxy Markarian 501 as observed by HEGRA. At 20 TeV the mean free path for photon–photon collisions on the infrared background would be much shorter than the distance to Markarian 501, implying absorption factors of the order of exp(−10), or greater, and consequently an excessive power output for this active galaxy. Possible solutions of this problem are discussed.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Nuclear and High Energy Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/312a7cf51751d02b54f8c0d026a657f12b31687a

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Citations in the corpus

Tests of Lorentz invariance: a 2013 update (2013, background): “This is why we shall adopt sometimes the expression ‘naively non-renormalizable’. absorption of TeV gamma rays emitted by AGN [101].”
Lorentz violation at high energy: Concepts, phenomena, and astrophysical constraints (2005, background): “Further stimulus came from the suggestion [43] that an LV threshold shift might explain the apparent under-absorption on the cosmic IR background of TeV gamma rays from the blazar Mkn501, however it is now believed by many that this anomaly goes away when a corrected IR background is used [44].”
THE COSMIC INFRARED BACKGROUND: Measurements and Implications ⁄ (2001, background): “For local sources, z ≪ 1, the opacity can be calculated from the local EBL (Coppi & Aharonian 1999; Protheroe & Meyer 2000).”
THE EXTRAGALACTIC BACKGROUND LIGHT, THE HUBBLE CONSTANT, AND ANOMALIES: CONCLUSIONS FROM 20 YEARS OF TeV GAMMA-RAY OBSERVATIONS (2015, methodology): “We investigate in this section the compatibility of the 86 spectra in the gamma-ray cosmology sample with a quantumgravity induced effect such as proposed by Kifune (1999), Aloisio et al. (2000), Protheroe & Meyer (2000), Ellis et al. (2001), Amelino-Camelia & Piran (2001), Stecker & Glashow (2001).”
Quantum-Spacetime Phenomenology (2008, background): “One can legitimately argue [463, 302] that the observed level of absorption of TeV gamma rays is low enough to justify speculations about “new physics” (even though, as mentioned, there”
A new interpretation of the gamma-ray observations of distant active galactic nuclei (2009, background): “Among other proposed explanations, it was suggested that photons may convert into some hypothetical axion-like particles that convert back into photons in the galactic magnetic fields [9, 10], or that Lorentz invariance violation may be the reason for the lack of absorption [11].”
New limits on the density of the extragalactic background light in the optical to the far-infrared from the spectra of all known TeV blazars (2007, background): “The so-calledpile-up at high energies was first noticed by Protheroe & Meyer (2000) for the Mkn 501 spectrum, and early attempts to avoid it invoked violation of the L rentz invariance (Kifune 1999; Protheroe & Meyer 2000).”