No Arabic abstract
The ARGO-YBJ detector, located at the Yangbajing Cosmic Ray Laboratory (4300 m a. s. l., Tibet, China), was a full coverage air shower array dedicated to gamma ray astronomy and cosmic ray studies. The wide field of view (~ 2 sr) and high duty cycle (> 86%), made ARGO-YBJ suitable to search for short and unexpected gamma ray emissions like gamma ray bursts (GRBs). Between 2007 November 6 and 2013 February 7, 156 satellite-triggered GRBs (24 of them with known redshift) occurred within the ARGO-YBJ field of view. A search for possible emission associated to these GRBs has been made in the two energy ranges 10-100 GeV and 10-1000 GeV. No significant excess has been found in time coincidence with the satellite detections nor in a time window of one hour after the bursts. Taking into account the EBL absorption, upper limits to the energy fluence at 99% of confidence level have been evaluated,with values ranging from ~ 10-5 erg cm-2 to ~10-1 erg cm-2.
We report on the search for Gamma Ray Bursts (GRBs) in the energy range 1-100 GeV in coincidence with the prompt emission detected by satellites using the Astrophysical Radiation with Ground-based Observatory at YangBaJing (ARGO-YBJ) air shower detector. Thanks to its mountain location (Yangbajing, Tibet, P.R. China, 4300 m a.s.l.), active surface (about 6700 m**2 of Resistive Plate Chambers), and large field of view (about 2 sr, limited only by the atmospheric absorption), the ARGO-YBJ air shower detector is particularly suitable for the detection of unpredictable and short duration events such as GRBs. The search is carried out using the single particle technique, i.e. counting all the particles hitting the detector without measurement of the energy and arrival direction of the primary gamma rays. Between 2004 December 17 and 2009 April 7, 81 GRBs detected by satellites occurred within the field of view of ARGO-YBJ (zenith angle < 45 deg). It was possible to examine 62 of these for >1 GeV counterpart in the ARGO-YBJ data finding no statistically significant emission. With a lack of detected spectra in this energy range fluence upper limits are profitable, especially when the redshift is known and the correction for the extragalactic absorption can be considered. The obtained fluence upper limits reach values as low as 10**{-5} erg cm**{-2} in the 1-100 GeV energy region. Besides this individual search for a higher energy counterpart, a statistical study of the stack of all the GRBs both in time and in phase was made, looking for a common feature in the GRB high energy emission. No significant signal has been detected.
The search for Gamma Ray Burst (GRB) emission in the energy range 1-100 GeV in coincidence with the satellite detection has been carried out using the Astrophysical Radiation with Ground-based Observatory at YangBaJing (ARGO-YBJ) experiment. The high altitude location (4300 m a.s.l.), the large active surface ($sim$ 6700 m$^2$ of Resistive Plate Chambers), the wide field of view ($sim 2~$sr, limited only by the atmospheric absorption) and the high duty cycle ($>$ 86 %) make the ARGO-YBJ experiment particularly suitable to detect short and unexpected events like GRBs. With the scaler mode technique, i.e., counting all the particles hitting the detector with no measurement of the primary energy and arrival direction, the minimum threshold of $sim$ 1 GeV can be reached, overlapping the direct measurements carried out by satellites. During the experiment lifetime, from December 17, 2004 to February 7, 2013, a total of 206 GRBs occurring within the ARGO-YBJ field of view (zenith angle $theta$ $le$ 45$^{circ}$) have been analyzed. This is the largest sample of GRBs investigated with a ground-based detector. Two lightcurve models have been assumed and since in both cases no significant excess has been found, the corresponding fluence upper limits in the 1-100 GeV energy region have been derived, with values as low as 10$^{-5}~$erg cm$^{-2}$. The analysis of a subset of 24 GRBs with known redshift has been used to constrain the fluence extrapolation to the GeV region together with possible cutoffs under different assumptions on the spectrum.
The ARGO-YBJ detector is an extensive air shower array that has been used to monitor the northern $gamma$-ray sky at energies above 0.3 TeV from 2007 November to 2013 January. In this paper, we present the results of a sky survey in the declination band from $-10^{circ}$ to $70^{circ}$, using data recorded over the past five years. With an integrated sensitivity ranging from 0.24 to $sim$1 Crab units depending on the declination, six sources have been detected with a statistical significance greater than 5 standard deviations. Several excesses are also reported as potential $gamma$-ray emitters. The features of each source are presented and discussed. Additionally, $95%$ confidence level upper limits of the flux from the investigated sky region are shown. Specific upper limits for 663 GeV $gamma$-ray AGNs inside the ARGO-YBJ field of view are reported. The effect of the absorption of $gamma$-rays due to the interaction with extragalactic background light is estimated.
The ARGO-YBJ experiment has been designed to study the Extensive Air Showers with an energy threshold lower than that of the existing arrays by exploiting the high altitude location(4300 m a.s.l. in Tibet, P.R. China) and the full ground plane coverage. The lower energy limit of the detector (E $sim$ 1 GeV) is reached by the scaler mode technique, i.e. recording the counting rate at fixed time intervals. At these energies, transient signals due to local (e.g. Forbush Decreases) and cosmological (e.g. Gamma Ray Bursts) phenomena are expected as a significant variation of the counting rate compared to the background. In this paper the performance of the ARGO-YBJ detector operating in scaler mode is described and discussed.
The hadronic interaction of cosmic rays with solar atmosphere can produce high energy gamma rays. The gamma-ray luminosity is correlated both with the flux of primary cosmic rays and the intensity of the solar magnetic field. The gamma rays below 200 GeV have been observed by $Fermi$ without any evident energy cutoff. The bright gamma-ray flux above 100 GeV has been detected only during solar minimum. The only available data in TeV range come from the HAWC observations, however outside the solar minimum. The ARGO-YBJ dataset has been used to search for sub-TeV/TeV gamma rays from the Sun during the solar minimum from 2008 to 2010, the same time period covered by the Fermi data. A suitable model containing the Sun shadow, solar disk emission and inverse-Compton emission has been developed, and the chi-square minimization method was used to quantitatively estimate the disk gamma-ray signal. The result shows that no significant gamma-ray signal is detected and upper limits to the gamma-ray flux at 0.3$-$7 TeV are set at 95% confidence level. In the low energy range these limits are consistent with the extrapolation of the Fermi-LAT measurements taken during solar minimum and are compatible with a softening of the gamma-ray spectrum below 1 TeV. They provide also an experimental upper bound to any solar disk emission at TeV energies. Models of dark matter annihilation via long-lived mediators predicting gamma-ray fluxes > $10^{-7}$ GeV $cm^{-2}$ $s^{-1}$ below 1 TeV are ruled out by the ARGO-YBJ limits.