Date of Award
Summer 8-15-2016
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Degree Type
Dissertation
Abstract
The large-scaled magnetic fields in intergalactic space may contain detailed information of the primordial magnetic fields produced in the early Universe. The generation of the cosmological matter-antimatter asymmetry may produce helical magnetic fields via CP (charge conjugation and parity) violating interactions during matter-genesis. Thus, the study of the intergalactic magnetic field (IGMF) could provide a new window on early-Universe cosmology. IGMFs deflect the electron-positron pairs produced by TeV gamma-rays from blazars, resulting in broadened beams of cascade GeV gamma-rays known as pair halos. In the presence of helical IGMFs, cascade GeV gamma-rays at different energies from a distant source fall into patterns in the observation plane in the GeV gamma-ray sky that have a similar chirality. These signatures of the IGMF on the gamma-ray emission from extragalactic sources, i.e. pair halos and helical patterns, can be observed using data from the Fermi Large Area Telescope (Fermi-LAT). In this dissertation, I describe methods for probing the IGMF using gamma-ray observations. I report on the results of a search for gamma-ray pair halos with a stacking analysis of low-redshift blazars using data from Fermi-LAT. For this analysis we used a number of a priori selection criteria, including the spatial and spectral properties of the Fermi sources. The angular distribution of ~ 1 GeV photons around 24 stacked isolated high-synchrotron-peaked BL Lacs with redshift z < 0.5 shows an excess over that of point-like sources. A frequentist test yields a p-value of p ~ 0.01 for the extended emission against the point-source hypothesis. A Bayesian estimation provides the common logarithm of Bayes factors > 2, consistent with expectations for pair halos produced in the IGMF with strength of ~ 10^{-17} to 10^{-15} Gauss. In addition, I present a search for parity violating signatures of helical IGMFs in the GeV gamma-ray sky. In this study, the IGMF helicity is examined by evaluating a parity-odd statistic using gamma-ray data obtained from Fermi-LAT observations at high galactic latitudes. The resulting negative values of the parity-odd statistic imply that there is an excess of left-handed spirals in the gamma-ray sky, indicating a left-handed helicity consistent with a helical magnetic field with strength of ~ 10^{-14} Gauss on ~ 10 Mpc scales.
Language
English (en)
Chair and Committee
James H. Buckley
Committee Members
Mark G. Alford, Ramanath Cowsik, Francesc Ferrer, Roman Garnett
Recommended Citation
Chen, Wenlei, "Probing Intergalactic Magnetic Fields from Gamma-Ray Observations" (2016). Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 836.
https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/art_sci_etds/836
Comments
Permanent URL: https://doi.org/doi:10.7936/K7XD1021