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Register a new userSearch for enhanced TeV gamma-ray emission from Giant Molecular Clouds using H.E.S.S
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Cosmic Ray (CR) interactions with the dense gas inside Giant Molecular Clouds (GMCs) produce neutral pions, which in turn decay into gamma rays. Thus, the gamma ray emission from GMCs is a direct tracer of the cosmic ray density and the matter density inside the clouds. Detection of enhanced TeV emission from GMCs, i.e., an emission significantly larger than what is expected from the average Galactic cosmic rays illuminating the cloud, can imply a variation in the local cosmic ray density, due to, for example, the presence of a recent accelerator in proximity to the cloud. Such gamma-ray observations can be crucial in probing the cosmic ray distribution across our Galaxy, but are complicated to perform with present generation Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes (IACTs). These studies require differentiating between the strong cosmic-ray induced background, the large scale diffuse emission, and the emission from the clouds, which is difficult to the small field of view of present generation IACTs. In this contribution, we use H.E.S.S. data collected over 16 years to search for TeV emission from GMCs in the inner molecular galacto-centric ring of our Galaxy. We implement a 3D FoV likelihood technique, and simultaneously model the hadronic background, the galactic diffuse emission and the emission expected from known VHE sources to probe for excess TeV gamma ray emission from GMCs.
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Supernova (SN) remnants are a well motivated candidate for the acceleration sites of cosmic rays with energies up to the knee (10^15 eV). It has been suggested that also young SNe (~<1 year after the explosion) may be able to accelerate cosmic rays to even higher energies. A smoking gun for cosmic-ray acceleration in young SNe would be the production of very-high-energy (VHE, >10 GeV) gamma-ray radiation. The H.E.S.S. imaging air Cherenkov telescope array is an instrument sensitive to such radiation. In this contribution, the pointing directions of the H.E.S.S. telescopes are compared to a recently published, extragalactic SN catalogue to identify coincidental observations. The results of the data analysis are discussed.
The long gamma-ray burst (GRB) 100621A, at the time the brightest X-ray transient ever detected by Swift-XRT in the $0.3textrm{--}10$ keV range, has been observed with the H.E.S.S. imaging air Cherenkov telescope array, sensitive to gamma radiation in the very-high-energy (VHE, $>100$ GeV) regime. Due to its relatively small redshift of $zsim0.5$, the favourable position in the southern sky and the relatively short follow-up time ($<700 rm{s}$ after the satellite trigger) of the H.E.S.S. observations, this GRB could be within the sensitivity reach of the H.E.S.S. instrument. The analysis of the H.E.S.S. data shows no indication of emission and yields an integral flux upper limit above $sim$380 GeV of $4.2times10^{-12} rm cm^{-2}s^{-1}$ (95 % confidence level), assuming a simple Band function extension model. A comparison to a spectral-temporal model, normalised to the prompt flux at sub-MeV energies, constraints the existence of a temporally extended and strong additional hard power law, as has been observed in the other bright X-ray GRB 130427A. A comparison between the H.E.S.S. upper limit and the contemporaneous energy output in X-rays constrains the ratio between the X-ray and VHE gamma-ray fluxes to be greater than 0.4. This value is an important quantity for modelling the afterglow and can constrain leptonic emission scenarios, where leptons are responsible for the X-ray emission and might produce VHE gamma rays.
We report on the search for very-high-energy gamma-ray emission from the regions around three nearby supersonic pulsars (PSR B0355+54, PSR J0357+3205 and PSR J1740+1000) that exhibit long X-ray tails. To date there is no clear detection of TeV emission from any pulsar tail that is prominent in X-ray or radio. We provide upper limits on the TeV flux, and luminosity, and also compare these limits with other pulsar wind nebulae detected in X-rays and the tail emission model predictions. We find that at least one of the three tails is likely to be detected in observations that are a factor of 2-3 more sensitive. The analysis presented here also has implications for deriving the properties of pulsar tails, for those pulsars whose tails could be detected in TeV.
Diffuse gamma-ray emission has long been established as the most prominent feature in the GeV sky. Although the imaging atmospheric Cherenkov technique has been successful in revealing a large population of discrete TeV gamma-ray sources, a thorough investigation of diffuse emission at TeV energies is still pending. Data from the Galactic Plane Survey (GPS) obtained by the High Energy Stereoscopic System (H.E.S.S.) have now achieved a sensitivity and coverage adequate for probing signatures of diffuse emission in the energy range of ~100 GeV to a few TeV. Gamma-rays are produced in cosmic-ray interactions with the interstellar medium (aka sea of cosmic rays) and in inverse Compton scattering on cosmic photon fields. This inevitably leads to guaranteed gamma-ray emission related to the gas content along the line-of-sight. Further contributions relate to those gamma-ray sources that fall below the current detection threshold and the aforementioned inverse Compton emission. Based on the H.E.S.S. GPS, we present the first observational assessment of diffuse TeV gamma-ray emission. The observation is compared with corresponding flux predictions based on the HI (LAB data) and CO (as a tracer of H2, NANTEN data) gas distributions. Consequences for unresolved source contributions and the anticipated level of inverse Compton emission are discussed.
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. GCs 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 emission from the direction of Terzan 5 with the H.E.S.S. telescope array. To search for VHE gamma-ray sources associated with other GCs, and to put constraints on leptonic emission models, we systematically analyzed the observations towards 15 GCs taken with H.E.S.S. We searched for individual sources of VHE gamma-rays from each GC in our sample 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 source of emission from Terzan 5, we calculated the expected gamma-ray flux for 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 emission from any of the 15 GCs. 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 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.
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