Very hard gamma-ray emission from a flare of Mrk 501

TL;DR

This paper analyzes a unique, month-long TeV gamma-ray flare from Mrk 501, characterized by an extremely hard spectrum and no X-ray counterpart, suggesting complex emission mechanisms and intergalactic cascade processes.

Contribution

It presents the first detailed analysis of an orphan TeV flare from Mrk 501 with a very hard spectrum and explores intergalactic cascade models involving ultra-weak magnetic fields.

Findings

The flare lasted about 1 month at energies above 10 GeV.

The spectrum during the flare was extremely hard with photon index ~1.1.

Different variability below and above 10 GeV suggests two separate emission components.

Abstract

We investigate the peculiar properties of a large TeV gamma-ray flare from Mrk~501 detected during the 2009 multiwavelength campaign. We identify the counterpart of the flare in the Fermi/LAT telescope data and study its spectral and timing characteristics. A strong order-of-magnitude increase of the very-high-energy gamma-ray flux during the flare was not accompanied by an increase in the X-ray flux, so that the flare was one of the "orphan"-type TeV flares observed in BL Lacs. The flare lasted about 1 month at energies above 10 GeV. The flaring source spectrum in the 10-200 GeV range was very hard, with a photon index 1.1+/-0.2, harder than that observed in any other blazar in the gamma-ray band. No simultaneous flaring activity was detected below 10 GeV. Different variability properties of the emission below and above 10 GeV indicate the existence of two separate components in the spectrum. We investigate possible explanations of the very hard flaring component. We consider, among others, the possibility that the flare is produced by an electromagnetic cascade initiated by very-high-energy gamma-rays in the intergalactic medium. Within such an interpretation, peculiar spectral and temporal characteristics of the flare could be explained if the magnetic field in the intergalactic medium is of the order of 1e-17 - 1e-16 G.