EXCEPTIONALLY BRIGHT TEV FLARES FROM THE BINARY LS I +61° 303

Journal Article · Wed Jan 20 00:00:00 EST 2016 · Astrophysical Journal Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8205/817/1/L7· OSTI ID:22518626

Archambault, S. ^[1]; Archer, A.; Buckley, J. H.; Bugaev, V. ^[2]; Aune, T.; Buchovecky, M. ^[3]; Barnacka, A. ^[4]; Benbow, W.; Cerruti, M. ^[5]; Bird, R.; Collins-Hughes, E. ^[6]; Byrum, K. ^[7]; Cardenzana, J. V; Dickinson, H. J.; Eisch, J. D. ^[8]; Chen, X. ^[9]; Ciupik, L. ^[10]; Connolly, M. P. ^[11]; Cui, W. ^[12]; others, and

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1. Physics Department, McGill University, Montreal, QC H3A 2T8 (Canada)
2. Department of Physics, Washington University, St. Louis, MO 63130 (United States)
3. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095 (United States)
4. Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138 (United States)
5. Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Amado, AZ 85645 (United States)
6. School of Physics, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4 (Ireland)
7. Argonne National Laboratory, 9700 S. Cass Avenue, Argonne, IL 60439 (United States)
8. Department of Physics and Astronomy, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011 (United States)
9. Institute of Physics and Astronomy, University of Potsdam, D-14476 Potsdam-Golm (Germany)
10. Astronomy Department, Adler Planetarium and Astronomy Museum, Chicago, IL 60605 (United States)
11. School of Physics, National University of Ireland Galway, University Road, Galway (Ireland)
12. Department of Physics and Astronomy, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907 (United States)

The TeV binary system LS I +61° 303 is known for its regular, non-thermal emission pattern that traces the orbital period of the compact object in its 26.5 day orbit around its B0 Ve star companion. The system typically presents elevated TeV emission around apastron passage with flux levels between 5% and 15% of the steady flux from the Crab Nebula (>300 GeV). In this article, VERITAS observations of LS I +61° 303 taken in late 2014 are presented, during which bright TeV flares around apastron at flux levels peaking above 30% of the Crab Nebula flux were detected. This is the brightest such activity from this source ever seen in the TeV regime. The strong outbursts have rise and fall times of less than a day. The short timescale of the flares, in conjunction with the observation of 10 TeV photons from LS I +61° 303 during the flares, provides constraints on the properties of the accelerator in the source.

• OSTI ID: 22518626
• Journal Information: Astrophysical Journal Letters, Vol. 817, 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
BINARY STARS
CRAB NEBULA
GAMMA RADIATION
LIMITING VALUES
ORBITS
PHOTON EMISSION
RADIATION FLUX
STELLAR FLARES
TEV RANGE
X RADIATION