Automatic quenching of high energy gamma-ray sources by synchrotron photons

Details Automatic quenching of high energy gamma-ray sources by synchrotron photons Automatic quenching of high energy gamma-ray sources by synchrotron photons

2007-01-22

arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0701633v2

Astrophys.J.661:L17-L20,2007

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

11 pages, 2 figures included. Revised version, accepted for publication in ApJL

Scientific paper

10.1086/518417

We investigate a magnetized plasma in which injected high energy gamma-rays annihilate on a soft photon field, that is provided by the synchrotron radiation of the created pairs. For a very wide range of magnetic fields, this process involves gamma-rays between 0.3 GeV and 30 TeV. We derive a simple dynamical system for this process, analyze its stability to runaway production of soft photons and paris, and find conditions for it to automatically quench by reaching a steady state with an optical depth to photon-photon annihilation larger than unity. We discuss applications to broad-band gamma-ray emitters, in particular supermassive black holes. Automatic quenching limits the gamma-ray luminosity of these objects and predicts substantial pair loading of the jets of less active sources.

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