Sensitivity of {gamma}-ray telescopes for detection of magnetic fields in the intergalactic medium

By A. Neronov, D. Semikoz. 2009

176 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We explore potential of current and next-generation {gamma}-ray telescopes for the detection of weak magnetic fields in the intergalactic medium. We demonstrate that using two complementary techniques, observation of extended emission around point sources and observation of time delays in {gamma}-ray flares, one would be able to probe most of the cosmologically and astrophysically interesting part of the 'magnetic field strength' vs 'correlation length' parameter space. This implies that {gamma}-ray observations with Fermi and ground-based Cherenkov telescopes will allow to (a) strongly constrain theories of the origin of magnetic fields in galaxies and galaxy clusters and (b) discover, constrain or rule out the existence of weak primordial magnetic field generated at different stages of evolution of the Early Universe.

Subfields: Nuclear and High Energy Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/4e9b7e107691e4185c5b6449c32126b4cc084829

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In Nuclear and High Energy Physics

1. Andrii Y. Neronov
2. F. Tavecchio
3. G. Ghisellini
4. R. Durrer
5. C. Dermer
6. J. Biteau
7. J. Finke
8. Luigi Foschini

Citations in the corpus

• TIME DELAY OF CASCADE RADIATION FOR TeV BLAZARS AND THE MEASUREMENT OF THE INTERGALACTIC MAGNETIC FIELD (2010, background): “The measurement of the intergalactic magnetic field (IGMF) gives information about processes operating in the early universe that are imprinted on the large-scale structure of the universe (see Neronov & Semikoz 2009).”
• The intergalactic magnetic field constrained by Fermi/LAT observations of the TeV blazar 1ES 0229+200 (2010, background): “In reality the IGMF is probably randomly oriented, maintaining its coherence in domains with a size∼1 Mpc (e.g. Neronov & Semikoz 2009).”
• EVIDENCE FOR GAMMA-RAY HALOS AROUND ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEI AND THE FIRST MEASUREMENT OF INTERGALACTIC MAGNETIC FIELDS (2010, background): “Since the trajectories of electrons and positrons in the cascade are affected by magnetic fields, a gamma-ray image of AGN is expected to exhibit a halo of secondary photons around a bright central point-like source (Aharonian et al. 1994; Dolag et al. 2009; Neronov & Semikoz 2009).”
• Indications for a pair-production anomaly from the propagation of VHE gamma-rays (2012, background): “[77] for a compilation of available limits) 3.”
• Extreme TeV blazars and the intergalactic magnetic field (2010, background): “…different components in theγ–ray spectrum: indeed, as long as the magnetic field exceedsB = 10−20 G, the emitting pairs are effectively deviated and, consequently, the reprocessed emission is diluted over times that can reach≈ 107 years around 1-10 GeV (e.g. Neronov & Semikoz 2009, Dermer”
• The Search for Spatial Extension in High-latitude Sources Detected by the Fermi Large Area Telescope (2018, background): “This occurs when(Neronov & Semikoz 2009; Meyer et al. 2012) l l l ´ + ´ + - - - ⎧⎨⎩ ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) B G z z 2 10 1 GeV 1 kpc, 8 10 1 GeV kpc kpc, 8 r r 15 4 15 4 3 4 1 2 where B is the IGMF strength at z=0, and zr is the redshift where the pair production takes place, producing…”
• Cosmological Magnetic Fields: Their Generation, Evolution and Observation (2013, methodology): “The time delay of the cascade emission scales as (Neronov and Semikoz 2009) tdel ≃”
• The Astrophysics of Ultrahigh-Energy Cosmic Rays (2011, background): “Meanwhile, Neronov & Semikoz (2009) demonstrated that the observation of extended gamma-ray emission around point sources together with time delays in gamma-ray flares should provide robust measurements of the EGMF, and help constrain scenarios of its origin.”
• EGMF Constraints from Simultaneous GeV-TeV Observations of Blazars (2011, background): “One can see that the time delay decreases proportionally∼ E−2.5γ or ∼ E −2 γ , with the increasing photon energyEγ, in agreement with the analytical calculations (Neronov & Semikoz 2009).”