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P.S. Coppi (Department of Astronomy, Yale University), A. Königl (Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Chicago)
Models for high-energy gamma-ray sources like gamma-ray bursts and blazars overcome the apparent problem of catastrophic photon-photon pair production inside the source (which would prevent the escape of the observed gamma-rays) by invoking relativistic source motions (Doppler boosting factors greater than 10-100). Relativistic source motion, however, does not avoid the problem of gamma-ray pair production on the external, unbeamed photons likely to be in the environments currently envisioned for the central engines of such sources. We discuss the constraints which result from taking into account the presence of such external photons, and present calculations of the reprocessed spectra that would be produced if pair production on these photon is in fact important.
The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: coppi@astro.yale.edu