Nearly degenerate electron distributions and superluminal radiation densities

Polylogarithmic fugacity expansions of the partition function, the caloric and thermal equations of state, and the specific heat of fermionic power-law distributions are derived in the nearly degenerate low-temperature/high-density quantum regime. The spectral functions of an ultra-relativistic electron plasma are obtained by averaging the tachyonic radiation densities of inertial electrons with Fermi power-laws, whose entropy is shown to be extensive and stable. The averaged radiation densities are put to test by performing tachyonic cascade fits to the γ-ray spectrum of the TeV blazar Markarian 421 in a low and high emission state. Estimates of the thermal electron plasma in this active galactic nucleus are extracted from the spectral fits, such as temperature, number count, and internal energy. The tachyonic cascades reproduce the quiescent as well as a burst spectrum of the blazar obtained with imaging atmospheric Cherenkov detectors. Double-logarithmic plots of the differential tachyon flux exhibit intrinsic spectral curvature, caused by the Boltzmann factor of the electron gas.