Perspective of detecting very high energy gamma-ray emission from active galactic nuclei with Large High Altitude Air Shower Observatory (LHAASO)

The detectability of active galactic nuclei (AGN), a major class of gamma-ray emitters in the sky, by the newly planned Chinese project, Large High Altitude Air Shower Observatory (LHAASO), is investigated. The expectation is primarily based on the AGN catalog of Fermi Large Area Telescope (Fermi-LAT), with an extrapolation to the very high energy (VHE) range taking into account the absorption effect by the extragalactic background light (EBL). It is found that LHAASO may have the potential to detect more than several tens of the Fermi detected AGN, basically BL Lacertaes, with one-year sky survey. The capability of measuring the energy spectrum and light curve are also discussed.