The luminosity function of TeV-emitting BL Lacs: observations of an HBL sample with VERITAS

VERITAS collaboration

Research output: Contribution to journalConference articlepeer-review

Abstract

High-frequency-peaked BL Lacs (HBLs) dominate the extragalactic TeV sky, with more than 50 objects detected by the current generation of TeV observatories. Still, the properties of TeV-emitting HBLs as a population are poorly understood due to biases introduced by the observing strategies of Cherenkov Telescopes, limiting our ability to estimate the potential contribution of TeV blazars to the diffuse neutrino, gamma-ray, and cosmic-ray background as well as their role in the late-stage evolution of active galactic nuclei. The VERITAS telescope array has designed a program to quantify and minimize observational biases by selecting a sample of 36 HBLs and measuring their TeV flux at times that are not weighted towards high-flux states. Such a survey could form the basis for a measurement of the luminosity function of TeV-emitting HBLs.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number854
JournalProceedings of Science
Volume395
StatePublished - Mar 18 2022
Event37th International Cosmic Ray Conference, ICRC 2021 - Virtual, Berlin, Germany
Duration: Jul 12 2021Jul 23 2021

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
Grid, which is supported by the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science, and resources of the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC), a U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science User Facility operated under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231. We acknowledge the excellent work of the technical support staff at the Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory and at the collaborating institutions in the construction and operation of the instrument.

Funding Information:
This research is supported by grants from the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science, the U.S. National Science Foundation and the Smithsonian Institution, by NSERC in Canada, and by the Helmholtz Association in Germany. This research used resources provided by the Open Science

Publisher Copyright:
© Copyright owned by the author(s).

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