Spectral analysis of Markarian 421 and Markarian 501 with HAWC

TL;DR

This paper presents a spectral analysis of two VHE blazars, Markarian 421 and 501, using HAWC data, focusing on spectral curvature at around 5 TeV with advanced energy estimation techniques.

Contribution

It introduces a maximum likelihood and neural network-based energy estimation method for spectral analysis of blazars at TeV energies.

Findings

Constraints on spectral curvature at ~5 TeV for both blazars.

Comparison of spectral results with different EBL models.

Enhanced energy estimation accuracy using neural networks.

Abstract

The Hight Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) Gamma-Ray Observatory monitors the gamma-ray sky in the energy range from 100 GeV to 100 TeV and has detected two very high energy (VHE) blazars: Markarian 421 (Mrk 421) and Markarian 501 (Mrk 501) in 1.5 years of observations. In this work, we present the spectral analysis above 1 TeV of both sources using a maximum likelihood method and an artificial neural network as an energy estimator. The main objectives are to constrain the spectral curvature of Mrk 421 and Mrk 501 at $\sim$5 TeV using the EBL models from Gilmore et al. (2012) and Franceschini et al. (2008).