Search

In the last two decades, very-high-energy gamma-ray astronomy has reached maturity: over 200 sources have been detected, both Galactic and extragalactic, by ground-based experiments. At present, Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) make up about 40% of the more than 200 sources detected at very high energies with ground-based telescopes, the majority of which are blazars, i.e. their jets are closely aligned with the line of sight to Earth and three quarters of which are classified as high-frequency peaked BL Lac objects. One challenge to studies of the cosmological evolution of BL Lacs is the difficulty of obtaining redshifts from their nearly featureless, continuum- dominated spectra. It is expected that a significant fraction of the AGN to be detected with the future Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) observatory will have no spectroscopic redshifts, compromising the reliability of BL Lac population studies, particularly of their cosmic evolution. We started an effort in 2019 to measure the redshifts of a large fraction of the AGN that are likely to be detected with CTA, using the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT). In this contribution, we present two results from an on-going SALT program focused on the determination of BL Lac object redshifts that will be relevant for the CTA observatory., 15 pages, 4 figures, 37th International Cosmic Ray Conference

Context. Blazars are the most numerous class of High Energy (HE; E about 50 MeV - few 100 GeV) and Very High Energy (VHE; E about 100 GeV - 10 TeV) gamma-ray emitters. As of today, a measured spectroscopic redshift is available for only about 50% of gamma-ray BL Lacs, mainly due to the difficulty of measuring reliable redshifts from their nearly featureless, continuum-dominated optical spectra. The knowledge of the redshift is fundamental for understanding the emission from blazars, for population studies and also for indirect studies of the extragalactic background light and searches for Lorentz invariance violation and axion-like particles using blazars. Aims. This paper is the first of a series of papers which aim to measure the redshift of a sample of blazars likely to be detected with the upcoming Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA), a ground based gamma-ray observatory. Methods. Monte Carlo simulations were performed to select those hard spectrum gamma-ray blazars detected with the Fermi-LAT telescope still lacking redshift measurements but likely to be detected by CTA in 30 hours of observing time or less. Optical observing campaigns involving deep imaging and spectroscopic observations were organised to efficiently constrain their redshifts. We performed deep medium to high resolution spectroscopy of nineteen blazar optical counterparts using the ESI spectrograph at Keck, the RSS spectrograph at the SALT telescope, and the EFOSC2 spectrograph at the ESO NTT. We searched systematically for spectral features and, when possible, we estimated the contribution of the host galaxy to the total flux. Results. We measured eleven firm spectroscopic redshifts with values ranging from 0.1116 to 0.482. one tentative redshift, three redshift lower limits including one at z > 0.449 and another at z > 0.868. There were four objects found to have featureless spectra., Accepted by Astronomy & Astrophysics

The blazar QSO B0218+357 is the most distant AGN (z=0.944) detected so far in the TeV range. It is gravitationally lensed by the galaxy B0218+357G (z=0.68). Very-high-energy (VHE) gamma-ray emission from QSO B0218+357 was detected in July 2014 with the MAGIC telescopes, by measuring the time-delayed image of the flare, detected earlier by FERMI in the GeV range. Its emission enables the study of the EBL properties when the Universe was only half of its present age. In addition, some features in the observed gamma-ray light curves hint that on the top of the time-delay caused by the mass of the lens galaxy, the gravitational microlensing effect may have occurred as well in the case of this system. The gravitational microlensing effect is very sensitive on the sizes of emitting regions at different wavelenghts. Ideas for future MWL observations of B0218+357 and similar systems will be discussed.

We present the results of the 2011 multi-wavelength campaign on the BL Lac object 1ES 1215+303. Observations were triggered by an optical outburst and resulted in the first detection of the very high energy (VHE, > 100GeV) gamma-ray emission from this source. We performspectral modeling of the simultaneous and quasi-simultaneous radio, optical, X-ray, HE and VHE emission and compare it with the spectra obtained from a low emission state observed in 2010. The optical photo-polarimetric data seem to suggest that the high state could be caused by a shock traveling down the jet and colliding with a standing shock with different magnetic field orientation. The spectral energy distribution obtained with the 2011 data can be modeled with a simple one zone SSC model, but it requires extreme values for the Doppler factor or the electron energy distribution. This suggests a more complicated scenario than a simple SSC one to occur in this source.

The flat spectrum radio quasar PKS 1222+216 was detected in the very high energy gamma-ray band by MAGIC during a highly active gamma-ray phase following an alert by the LAT onboard Fermi. Its relatively hard spectrum without a cut off, together with the observed variability on timescale of ~10 min challenges standard emission models. If the emission originates in a portion of the relativistic jet located inside the BLR, severe absorption of gamma rays above few tens of GeV is expected due to the pair production process. These observations imply the existence of a very compact (R_b ~5 x 10^{14} cm) and very fast blob located far beyond the BLR radius, responsible for the rapidly varying high energy flux. However the long term (days-weeks) coherent evolution of the GeV flux recorded by LAT indicates that there could be also the substantial contribution from another larger emission region. We model the spectral energy distribution of PKS 1222+216 during the epoch of the MAGIC detection assuming three different scenarios,: (1) a one-zone model considering only the emission from a compact blob outside the BLR; (2) a two-zone model considering the compact blob plus an emitting region filling the whole jet cross-section located outside the BLR and (3) a two zone model with the jet emitting region inside the BLR. We find that in all cases the high-energy emission from the compact blob is dominated by the inverse Compton scattering of the IR thermal radiation of the dusty torus. Both regions are matter dominated, with a negligible Poynting flux. These results disfavor models in which the compact blob is the result of reconnection events inside the jet or "needles" of high-energy electrons. Instead, the observational framework and our radiative models could be compatible with scenarios in which the jet is re-collimated and focussed at large distances from the central BH., Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures, accepted by A&A after substantial revision