VLBA observations of radio faint Fermi-LAT sources above 10 GeV

TL;DR

This study uses VLBA radio observations to confirm blazar associations among faint gamma-ray sources detected above 10 GeV by Fermi-LAT, revealing compact cores and proposing new counterparts, thus enhancing understanding of extreme gamma-ray emitters.

Contribution

The paper presents high-resolution VLBA observations of 84 faint gamma-ray sources, confirming blazar associations and proposing new low-frequency counterparts for unassociated sources, expanding the sample of well-characterized high-energy blazars.

Findings

93% of sources have a compact high brightness temperature radio core.

Detected sources are predominantly radio weak with median flux density of 16.3 mJy.

Proposed new low-frequency associations for 16 unassociated gamma-ray sources.

Abstract

The first Fermi-LAT High-energy source catalog (1FHL), containing gamma-ray sources detected above 10 GeV, is an ideal sample to characterize the physical properties of the most extreme gamma-ray sources. We investigate the pc scale properties of a sub-sample of radio faint 1FHL sources with the aim to confirm the proposed blazar associations, by revealing a compact high brightness temperature radio core, and we propose new low-frequency counterparts for the unassociated gamma-ray sources (UGS). Moreover, we increase the number of 1FHL sources with high resolution observations to explore the possible connection between radio and gamma rays at E >10 GeV. We observed 84 1FHL sources, mostly blazars of High Synchrotron Peaked (HSP) type, in the northern sky with the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) at 5 GHz. These sources lack high resolution radio observations and have at least one NVSS counterpart within the 95% confidence radius. For those sources without a well identified radio counterpart we exploit the VLBA multiple phase-center correlation capability to discern among the possible low-frequency candidates. For about 93% of the sources of our sample we reveal a compact high brightness temperature radio core, supporting their proposed blazar association. The vast majority of the detected sources are radio weak, with a median VLBI flux density value of 16.3 mJy. For the detected sources we obtain an average brightness temperature of the order of $2\times10^{10} \, \rm{K}$. We find a compact component for 16 UGS, for which we propose a new low-frequency association. We find brightness temperature values which do not require high Doppler factors, and are in agreement with the expected values for the equipartition of energy between particles and magnetic field. We find strong indications about the blazar nature of all of the detected UGS, for which we propose new low-frequency associations.