• Home
• Abstract Submission
• Participants
• Local Information
• Program
• FAQ

Methods for Identifying Pair Halos

B. Wells
R. Caputo, W. A. Atwood, S. Ritz

Abstract:

The flux of very high energy gamma rays from active galactic nuclei (AGN) is attenuated via interactions with extragalactic background photons and is converted into e+e- pairs. With non-zero intergalactic magnetic fields, the electrons and positrons will deflect as they propagate and simultaneously lose energy by upscattering cosmic microwave background photons. ``Pair halos,'' the visible consequences of these electromagnetic cascades, are faint and difficult to observe against their AGN counterparts. We investigate three methods for indirectly identifying pair halos, using a two-component approach to model the AGN core/halo image. We estimate each method?s sensitivity by utilizing a new, detailed Monte Carlo pair-halo simulation.