STACEE Observations of Active Galactic Nuclei and Other Sources

Details STACEE Observations of Active Galactic Nuclei and Other Sources STACEE Observations of Active Galactic Nuclei and Other Sources

Aug 2001

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2001icrc....7.2593o&link_type=abstract

Proceedings of the 27th International Cosmic Ray Conference. 07-15 August, 2001. Hamburg, Germany. Under the auspices of the Int

Physics

Scientific paper

We describe recent observations and future plans for the Solar Tower Atmospheric Cherenkov Effect Experiment (STACEE) located at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico. STACEE is a ground-based experiment for detecting atmospheric Cherenkov light from γrays in the energy range 50 to 500 GeV. We describe recent observations of active galactic nuclei such as Mrk 501, and also outline plans for the observations of other AGN, including Flat Spectrum Radio Quasars (FSRQs) detected by EGRET above 1 GeV and other BL-Lac objects. We summarize plans for observing other sources, including the Crab Nebula, other pulsars, supernova remnants, and unidentified EGRET objects. The up-to-date results from recent source observations by STACEE will be presented at the conference. 1 Intergalactic absorption and the γ-ray horizon The energy range from 50 to 250 GeV is important for understanding many high energy astrophysical objects, especially active galactic nuclei. Great progress has been made during the last decade, but many problems remain. For example, while dozens of AGN at a variety of redshifts were detected by EGRET, only a few of the closest AGN have been detected by ground-based experiments above 250 GeV. These results imply that the power-law spectra of many AGN cut off at energies between 20 and 250 GeV, and the fact that only nearby AGN are seen at very high energies argues that the γrays are attenuated on their long journey to Earth. High energy γ-rays interact with photons at infrared/optical/UV energies via the pair-production process (Stecker and de Jager, 1993; Biller, 1995). The level of such extragalactic background light (EBL) from galaxies is not well known, but measurements of absorption features of AGN should provide constraints on its flux and spectral shape. These constraints in turn could give us valuable information about the epoch of galaxy formation and the composition of dark mat-

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