A new light boson from MAGIC observations?

✍ Scribed by Marco Roncadelli; Alessandro De Angelis; Oriana Mansutti

• Book ID: 103870482
• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2009
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 214 KB
• Volume: 188
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0920-5632
• DOI: 10.1016/j.nuclphysbps.2009.02.011

✦ Synopsis

Recent detection of blazar 3C279 by MAGIC has confirmed previous indications by H.E.S.S. that the Universe is more transparent to very-high-energy gamma rays than currently thought. This circumstance can be reconciled with observations of nearby blazars provided that photon oscillations into a very light Axion-Like Particle occur in extragalactic magnetic fields. The emerging "DARMA scenario" can be tested in the near future by the satelliteborne Fermi LAT detector as well as by the ground-based Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes H.E.S.S., MAGIC, CANGAROO III, VERITAS and by the Extensive Air Shower arrays ARGO-YBJ and MILAGRO.

1 Frequency band 1.2 • 10 3 GHz -1.2 • 10 6 GHz, corresponding to the wavelength range 0.25 μm -250 μm.