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Register a new userThe very-high-energy gamma-ray view of the Galactic Centre as of early 2010
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Added by
Christopher van Eldik
Publication date
2011
fields
Physics
and research's language is
English
Authors
Christopher van Eldik
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Progress in the Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Technique has enabled first sensitive observations of the innermost few 100 pc of the Milky Way in Very High Energy (VHE; >100 GeV) gamma rays. Observations by the H.E.S.S. instrument deliver the at date most precise data on this peculiar region, and provide an interesting view onto the acceleration and propagation of energetic particles near the Galactic Centre. Besides two point-like sources -- one coincident with the supermassive black hole (SMBH) Sgr A* -- diffuse VHE emission has been discovered within a 1 deg region around the centre. The current VHE gamma-ray view of the region is reviewed, and possible counterparts of the gamma-ray sources and the origin of the diffuse emission are discussed.
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Recent progress in pushing the sensitivity of the Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Technique into the 10 mCrab regime has enabled first sensitive observations of the innermost few 100 pc of the Milky Way in Very High Energy (VHE; >100 GeV) gamma rays. These observations are a valuable tool to understand the acceleration and propagation of energetic particles near the Galactic Centre. Remarkably, besides two compact gamma-ray sources, faint diffuse gamma-ray emission has been discovered with high significance. The current VHE gamma-ray view of the Galactic Centre region is reviewed, and possible counterparts of the gamma-ray sources and the origin of the diffuse emission are discussed. The future prospects for VHE Galactic Centre observations are discussed based on order-of-magnitude estimates for a CTA type array of telescopes.
The Galactic center is an interesting region for high-energy (0.1-100 GeV) and very-high-energy (E > 100 GeV) gamma-ray observations. Potential sources of GeV/TeV gamma-ray emission have been suggested, e.g., the accretion of matter onto the supermassive black hole, cosmic rays from a nearby supernova remnant (e.g. SgrA East), particle acceleration in a plerion, or the annihilation of dark matter particles. The Galactic center has been detected by EGRET and by Fermi/LAT in the MeV/GeV energy band. At TeV energies, the Galactic center was detected with moderate significance by the CANGAROO and Whipple 10 m telescopes and with high significance by H.E.S.S., MAGIC, and VERITAS. We present the results from three years of VERITAS observations conducted at large zenith angles resulting in a detection of the Galactic center on the level of 18 standard deviations at energies above ~2.5TeV. The energy spectrum is derived and is found to be compatible with hadronic, leptonic and hybrid emission models discussed in the literature. Future, more detailed measurements of the high-energy cutoff and better constraints on the high-energy flux variability will help to refine and/or disentangle the individual models.
We report on the detailed radio status of the M87 jet during the Very-High-Energy (VHE) gamma-ray flaring event in April 2010, obtained from high-resolution, multi-frequency, phase-referencing VLBA observations. We especially focus on the properties for the jet base (the radio core) and the peculiar knot HST-1, which are currently favored as the gamma-ray emitting sites. During the VHE flaring event, the HST-1 region remains stable in terms of its structure and flux density in the optically thin regime above 2GHz, being consistent with no signs of enhanced activities reported at X-ray for this feature. The radio core shows an inverted spectrum at least up to 43GHz during this event. Astrometry of the core position, which is specified as ~20Rs from the central engine in our previous study, shows that the core position is stable on a level of 4Rs. The core at 43 and 22GHz tends to show slightly (~10%) higher flux level near the date of the VHE flux peak compared with the epochs before/after the event. The size of the 43-GHz core is estimated to be ~17Rs, which is close to the size of the emitting region suggested from the observed time scale of rapid variability at VHE. These results tend to favor the scenario that the VHE gamma-ray flare in 2010 April is associated with the radio core.
Globular clusters (GCs) are established emitters of high-energy (HE, 100 MeV<E<100 GeV) gamma-ray radiation which could originate from the cumulative emission of the numerous millisecond pulsars (msPSRs) in the clusters cores or from inverse Compton (IC) scattering of relativistic leptons accelerated in the GC environment. These stellar clusters could also constitute a new class of sources in the very-high-energy (VHE, E>100 GeV) gamma-ray regime, judging from the recent detection of a signal from the direction of Terzan 5 with the H.E.S.S. telescope array. We searched for point-like and extended VHE gamma-ray emission from 15 GCs serendipitously covered by H.E.S.S observations and also performed a stacking analysis combining the data from all GCs to investigate the hypothesis of a population of faint emitters. Assuming IC emission as the origin of the VHE gamma-ray signal from the direction of Terzan 5, we calculated the expected gamma-ray flux from each of the 15 GCs, based on their number of millisecond pulsars, their optical brightness and the energy density of background photon fields. We did not detect significant VHE gamma-ray emission from any of the 15 GCs in either of the two analyses. Given the uncertainties related to the parameter determinations, the obtained flux upper limits allow to rule out the simple IC/msPSR scaling model for NGC 6388 and NGC 7078. The upper limits derived from the stacking analyses are factors between 2 and 50 below the flux predicted by the simple leptonic scaling model, depending on the assumed source extent and the dominant target photon fields. Therefore, Terzan 5 still remains exceptional among all GCs, as the VHE gamma-ray emission either arises from extra-ordinarily efficient leptonic processes, or from a recent catastrophic event, or is even unrelated to the GC itself.
Data obtained in the very high energy gamma-ray band with the new generation of imaging telescopes, in particular through the galactic plane survey undertaken by H.E.S.S., low threshold observations with MAGIC and more recently by operation of VERITAS, have revealed dozens of galactic and extragalactic sources, providing a wealth of information on a variety of high energy acceleration sites in our universe. Also, the water Cherenkov instrument Milagro has provided several extended sources after seven years of data integration. An overview of these results with focus on some of the most recent highlights is given.
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