Eur. Phys. J. C (2017) 77: 741
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-017-5335-2

Letter

Photohadronic scenario in interpreting the February–March 2014 flare of 1ES 1011+496

¹ Instituto de Ciencias Nucleares, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Circuito Exterior, C.U., A. Postal 70-543, 04510, Mexico, DF, Mexico
² Astrophysical Big Bang Laboratory, RIKEN, Hirosawa, Wako, Saitama, 351-0198, Japan
³ Department of Physics, University of Johannesburg, P.O. Box 524, Auckland Park, 2006, South Africa

^* e-mail: sarira@nucleares.unam.mx

Received: 19 September 2017
Accepted: 26 October 2017
Published online: 6 November 2017

Abstract

The extraordinary multi-TeV flare from 1ES 1011+496 during February–March 2014 was observed by the MAGIC telescopes for 17 nights and the average spectrum of the whole period has a non-trivial shape. We have used the photohadronic model and a template extragalactic background light model to explain the average spectrum which fits the flare data well. The spectral index is the only free parameter in our model. We have also shown that the non-trivial nature of the spectrum is due to the change in the behavior of the optical depth above GeV -ray energy accompanied with the high SSC flux. This corresponds to an almost flat intrinsic flux for the multi-TeV -rays. Our model prediction can constrain the SSC flux of the leptonic models in the quiescent state.