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Detecting the Attenuation of Blazar Gamma-ray Emission by Extragalactic Background Light with GLASTGamma rays with energy above 10 GeV interact with optical-UV photons resulting in pair production. Therefore, a large sample of high redshift sources of these gamma rays can be used to probe the extragalactic background starlight (EBL) by examining the redshift dependence of the attenuation of the flux above 10 GeV. GLAST, the next generation high-energy gamma-ray telescope, will for the first time have the unique capability to detect thousands of gamma-ray blazars up to redshifts of at least z = 4, with enough angular resolution to allow identification of a large fraction of their optical counterparts. By combining recent determinations of the gamma-ray blazar luminosity function, recent calculations of the high energy gamma-ray opacity due to EBL absorption, and the expected GLAST instrument performance to produce simulated samples of blazars that GLAST would detect, including their redshifts and fluxes, we demonstrate that these blazars have the potential to be a highly effective probe of the EBL.
Document ID
20000026338
Acquisition Source
Goddard Space Flight Center
Document Type
Preprint (Draft being sent to journal)
Authors
Chen, Andrew
(NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, MD United States)
Ritz, Steven
(NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, MD United States)
Date Acquired
August 19, 2013
Publication Date
January 1, 1999
Publication Information
Publication: EGRET Team Papers to be Published in the Proceedings of the Fifth Compton Symposium
Subject Category
Space Radiation
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Work of the US Gov. Public Use Permitted.
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