The cosmic TeV gamma-ray background spectrum

However, investigation on the cosmic TeV gamma-ray background radiation still remains sparse. Here, we report the lower bound on the cosmic TeV gamma-ray background spectrum placed by the cumulative flux of individual detected extragalactic TeV sources including blazars, radio galaxies, and starburst galaxies.

The current limit on the cosmic TeV gamma-ray background above 0.1TeV is obtained as 2.8x10^-8^(E/100GeV)^-0.55^exp(-E/2100GeV)[GeV/cm2/s/sr] <E^2^dN/dE<1.1x10^-7^(E/100GeV)^-0.49^[GeV/cm2/s/sr], where the upper bound is set by requirement that the cascade flux from the cosmic TeV gamma-ray background radiation can not exceed the measured cosmic GeV gamma-ray background spectrum. Two nearby blazars, Mrk421 and Mrk501, explain ~70% of the cumulative background flux at 0.8-4TeV, while extreme blazars start to dominate at higher energies.