High energy gamma rays from the massive black hole in the Galactic Center

  • Aharonian, F
  • Neronov, A Yu
Publication date
January 2004
Publisher
University of Chicago Press

Abstract

Accreting black holes are believed to be sites of possible particle acceleration with favorable conditions also for effective gamma-ray production. However, because of photon-photon pair production, only low energy (MeV) gamma-rays can escape these compact objects with typically very large compactness parameter, given that in most cases the accretion disks within 10 Schwarzschild radii radiate with a power exceeding 10 percent of the Eddington luminosity. Therefore, the high-energy gamma-ray emission of these objects (both stellar mass and supermassive BHs) is generally suppressed, and consequently the unique information on possible particle acceleration process near the event horizon of the BH is essentially lost. Fortunately, this is not ...

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