CONSTRAINTS ON VERY HIGH ENERGY EMISSION FROM GRB 130427A

Journal Article · Sat Nov 01 00:00:00 EDT 2014 · Astrophysical Journal Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1088/2041-8205/795/1/L3· OSTI ID:22364597

Aliu, E.; Errando, M. ^[1]; Aune, T. ^[2]; Barnacka, A. ^[3]; Beilicke, M.; Buckley, J. H.; Bugaev, V. ^[4]; Benbow, W.; Cerruti, M. ^[5]; Berger, K. ^[6]; Biteau, J. ^[7]; Byrum, K. ^[8]; Cardenzana, J. V; Dickinson, H. J.; Eisch, J. D. ^[9]; Chen, X. ^[10]; Ciupik, L. ^[11]; Connaughton, V. ^[12]; Cui, W. ^[13]; others, and

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1. Department of Physics and Astronomy, Barnard College, Columbia University, NY 10027 (United States)
2. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095 (United States)
3. Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138 (United States)
4. Department of Physics, Washington University, St. Louis, MO 63130 (United States)
5. Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Amado, AZ 85645 (United States)
6. Department of Physics and Astronomy and the Bartol Research Institute, University of Delaware, Newark, DE 19716 (United States)
7. Santa Cruz Institute for Particle Physics and Department of Physics, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA 95064 (United States)
8. Argonne National Laboratory, 9700 S. Cass Avenue, Argonne, IL 60439 (United States)
9. Department of Physics and Astronomy, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011 (United States)
10. Institute of Physics and Astronomy, University of Potsdam, 14476 Potsdam-Golm (Germany)
11. Astronomy Department, Adler Planetarium and Astronomy Museum, Chicago, IL 60605 (United States)
12. Center for Space Plasma and Aeronomic Research (CSPAR), University of Alabama in Huntsville, Huntsville, AL 35899 (United States)
13. Department of Physics and Astronomy, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907 (United States)

Prompt emission from the very fluent and nearby (z = 0.34) gamma-ray burst GRB 130427A was detected by several orbiting telescopes and by ground-based, wide-field-of-view optical transient monitors. Apart from the intensity and proximity of this GRB, it is exceptional due to the extremely long-lived high-energy (100 MeV to 100 GeV) gamma-ray emission, which was detected by the Large Area Telescope on the Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope for ∼70 ks after the initial burst. The persistent, hard-spectrum, high-energy emission suggests that the highest-energy gamma rays may have been produced via synchrotron self-Compton processes though there is also evidence that the high-energy emission may instead be an extension of the synchrotron spectrum. VERITAS, a ground-based imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescope array, began follow-up observations of GRB 130427A ∼71 ks (∼20 hr) after the onset of the burst. The GRB was not detected with VERITAS; however, the high elevation of the observations, coupled with the low redshift of the GRB, make VERITAS a very sensitive probe of the emission from GRB 130427A for E > 100 GeV. The non-detection and consequent upper limit derived place constraints on the synchrotron self-Compton model of high-energy gamma-ray emission from this burst.

• OSTI ID: 22364597
• Journal Information: Astrophysical Journal Letters, Vol. 795, Issue 1; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 2041-8205
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

79 ASTROPHYSICS
COSMOLOGY AND ASTRONOMY
COSMIC GAMMA BURSTS
COSMIC PHOTONS
GAMMA DETECTION
GEV RANGE
LIMITING VALUES
MEV RANGE
PHOTON EMISSION
RED SHIFT
SPACE
TELESCOPES
TRANSIENTS