No Arabic abstract
The High Energy Stereoscopic System (H.E.S.S.) is an array of five imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes. Since 2003 it has been operating in the configuration of four 12 m telescopes complemented in 2012 by a much bigger 28 m telescope in the centre of the array. It is designed to detect very high energy (VHE) gamma-rays in the range of ~20 GeV to ~50 TeV. Over the past decade it performed extremely successful observations of the Galactic plane, which led to the discovery of about 70 sources amongst which the most numerous classes are pulsar wind nebulae, supernova remnants and binary systems. Recently H.E.S.S. also discovered the VHE emission from the Vela pulsar, which became the second pulsar detected at TeV energies after the Crab pulsar. An overview of the main H.E.S.S. discoveries in our Galaxy and their implications on the understanding of physical processes is discussed in this paper.
The H.E.S.S. experiment is an array of four imaging Cherenkov telescopes located in the Khomas Highlands of Namibia. It has been operating in its full configuration since December 2003 and detects very-high-energy (VHE) gamma rays ranging from 100 GeV to 50 TeV. Since 2004, the continuous observation of the Galactic Plane by the H.E.S.S. array of telescopes has yielded the discovery of more than 50 sources, belonging to the classes of pulsar wind nebulae (PWN), supernova remnants (SNR), gamma ray binaries and, more recently, a stellar cluster and molecular clouds in the vicinity of shell-type SNRs. Galactic emission seen by H.E.S.S. and its implications for particle acceleration in our Galaxy are discussed.
H.E.S.S. is one of the most sensitive instruments in the very high energy (VHE; > 100 GeV) gamma-ray domain and has revealed many new sources along the Galactic Plane. After the successful first VHE Galactic Plane Survey of 2004, H.E.S.S. has continued and extended that survey in 2005-2008, discovering a number of new sources, many of which are unidentified. Some of the unidentified H.E.S.S. sources have several positional counterparts and hence several different possible scenarios for the origin of the VHE gamma-ray emission; their identification remains unclear. Others have so far no counterparts at any other wavelength. Particularly, the lack of an X-ray counterpart puts serious constraints on emission models. Several newly discovered and still unidentified VHE sources are reported here.
The Galactic center region is the most active region in the Milky Way harboring a wealth of photon sources at all wavelengths. H.E.S.S. observations of the Galactic Center (GC) region revealed for the first time in very high energy (VHE, E> 100 GeV) gamma-rays a detailed view of the innermost 100 pc of the Milky Way and provided a valuable probe for the acceleration processes and propagation of energetic particles near the GC. H.E.S.S. has taken more than 180 hours of good-quality observations toward the GC region since the experience started in 2003. A strong and steady gamma-ray source has been detected coincident in position with the supermassive black hole Sgr A*. Besides the central pointlike source, a diffuse emission extended along the Galactic Plane has been detected within about 1$^{circ}$ around the GC. An accurate analysis of the Galactic center region suggests that the diffuse emission may dominate highest energy end of the overall GC source spectrum. I will review the current VHE view by H.E.S.S. of the GC region and briefly discuss the theoretical models which explain VHE gamma-ray emissions of the central source and the diffuse emission.
Diffuse $gamma$-ray emission is the most prominent observable signature of celestial cosmic-ray interactions at high energies. While already being investigated at GeV energies over several decades, assessments of diffuse $gamma$-ray emission at TeV energies remain sparse. After completion of the systematic survey of the inner Galaxy, the H.E.S.S. experiment is in a prime position to observe large-scale diffuse emission at TeV energies. Data of the H.E.S.S. Galactic Plane Survey are investigated in regions off known $gamma$-ray sources. Corresponding $gamma$-ray flux measurements were made over an extensive grid of celestial locations. Longitudinal and latitudinal profiles of the observed $gamma$-ray fluxes show characteristic excess emission not attributable to known $gamma$-ray sources. For the first time large-scale $gamma$-ray emission along the Galactic Plane using imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes has been observed. While the background subtraction technique limits the ability to recover modest variation on the scale of the H.E.S.S. field of view or larger, which is characteristic of the inverse Compton scatter-induced Galactic diffuse emission, contributions of neutral pion decay as well as emission from unresolved $gamma$-ray sources can be recovered in the observed signal to a large fraction. Calculations show that the minimum $gamma$-ray emission from $pi^0$-decay represents a significant contribution to the total signal. This detection is interpreted as a mix of diffuse Galactic $gamma$-ray emission and unresolved sources.
The ESA Gaia mission will provide a multi-epoch database for a billion of objects, including variable objects that comprise stars, active galactic nuclei and asteroids. We highlight a few of Gaias properties that will benefit the study of variable objects, and illustrate with two examples the work being done in the preparation of the data processing and object characterization. The first example relates to the analysis of the nearly simultaneous multi-band data of Gaia with the Principal Component Analysis techniques, and the second example concerns the classification of Gaia time series into variability types. The results of the ground-based processing of Gaias variable objects data will be made available to the scientific community through the intermediate and final ESA releases throughout the mission.