Extreme & High Synchrotron Peaked Blazars at the limit of Fermi-LAT detectability: the $\gamma$-ray spectrum of 1BIGB sources

TL;DR

This paper presents the gamma-ray spectra of 148 high-synchrotron-peaked blazars from the 1BIGB catalog, highlighting their potential as TeV candidates for future observatories like CTA and providing new insights into their gamma-ray properties.

Contribution

The study provides the first gamma-ray spectral energy distributions for 148 HSP blazars from the 1BIGB catalog, expanding the known gamma-ray blazar population and assessing their detectability with CTA.

Findings

Most sources are new detections not in previous catalogs.

Extrapolated spectra suggest many sources are promising VHE candidates.

Publicly available SEDs facilitate future VHE studies.

Abstract

We present the 1-100 GeV spectral energy distribution for a population of 148 high-synchrotron-peaked blazars (HSPs) recently detected with Fermi-LAT as part of the First Brazil-ICRANet Gamma-ray Blazar catalogue (1BIGB). Most of the 1BIGB sources do not appear in previous Fermi-LAT catalogues and their gamma-ray spectral properties are presented here for the first time, representing a significant new extension of the gamma-ray blazar population. Since our sample was originally selected from an excess signal in the 0.3-500 GeV band, the sources stand out as promising TeV blazar candidates, potentially in reach of the forthcoming very-high-energy (VHE) gamma-ray observatory, CTA. The flux estimates presented here are derived considering PASS8 data, integrating over more than 9 years of Fermi-LAT observations. We also review the full broadband fit between 0.3-500 GeV presented in the original 1BIGB paper for all sources, updating the power-law parameters with currently available Fermi-LAT dataset. The importance of these sources in the context of VHE population studies with both current instruments and the future CTA is evaluated. To do so, we select a subsample of 1BIGB sources and extrapolate their gamma-ray SEDs to the highest energies, properly accounting for absorption due to the extragalactic background light. We compare those extrapolations to the published CTA sensitivity curves and estimate their detectability by CTA. Two notable sources from our sample, namely 1BIGB J224910.6-130002 and 1BIGB J194356.2+211821, are discussed in greater detail. All gamma-ray SEDs, which are shown here for the first time, are made publicly available via the Brazilian Science Data Center (BSDC) service, maintained at CBPF, in Rio de Janeiro.