Intergalactic absorption and blazar γ-ray spectra

The distribution of TeV spectral slopes versus redshift for currently known TeV blazars (16 sources with z <= 0.21, and one with z > 0.25) is essentially a scatter plot with hardly any hint of a global trend. We suggest that this is the outcome of two combined effects of intergalactic gamma gamma absorption, plus an inherent feature of the SSC (synchro-self-Compton) process of blazar emission. First, flux dimming introduces a bias that favors detection of progressively more flaring sources at higher redshifts. According to mainstream SSC models, more flaring source states imply sources with flatter TeV slopes. This results in a structured relation between intrinsic TeV slope and redshift. The second effect, spectral steepening by intergalactic absorption, affects sources progressively with distance and effectively wipes out the intrinsic slope-redshift correlation.