A Targeted Search for Point Sources of EeV Photons with the Pierre Auger Observatory

Journal Article · Fri Mar 10 00:00:00 EST 2017 · Astrophysical Journal Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/AA61A5· OSTI ID:22654520

Aab, A. ^[1]; Abreu, P. ^[2]; Aglietta, M. ^[3]; Samarai, I. Al ^[4]; Albuquerque, I. F. M. ^[5]; Allekotte, I. ^[6]; Almela, A. ^[7]; Castillo, J. Alvarez ^[8]; Alvarez-Muñiz, J. ^[9]; Anastasi, G. A. ^[10]; others, and

---

1. Institute for Mathematics, Astrophysics and Particle Physics (IMAPP), Radboud Universiteit, Nijmegen (Netherlands)
2. Laboratório de Instrumentação e Física Experimental de Partículas—LIP and Instituto Superior Técnico—IST, Universidade de Lisboa—UL, Lisbon (Portugal)
3. INFN, Sezione di Torino, Torino (Italy)
4. Laboratoire de Physique Nucléaire et de Hautes Energies (LPNHE), Universités Paris 6 et Paris 7, CNRS-IN2P3, Paris (France)
5. Universidade de São Paulo, Inst. de Física, São Paulo (Brazil)
6. Centro Atómico Bariloche and Instituto Balseiro (CNEA-UNCuyo-CONICET), San Carlos de Bariloche (Argentina)
7. Instituto de Tecnologías en Detección y Astropartículas (CNEA, CONICET, UNSAM), Centro Atómico Constituyentes, Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica, Buenos Aires (Argentina)
8. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, México, D. F., México (Mexico)
9. Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, La Coruña (Spain)
10. Gran Sasso Science Institute (INFN), L’Aquila (Italy)

Simultaneous measurements of air showers with the fluorescence and surface detectors of the Pierre Auger Observatory allow a sensitive search for EeV photon point sources. Several Galactic and extragalactic candidate objects are grouped in classes to reduce the statistical penalty of many trials from that of a blind search and are analyzed for a significant excess above the background expectation. The presented search does not find any evidence for photon emission at candidate sources, and combined p -values for every class are reported. Particle and energy flux upper limits are given for selected candidate sources. These limits significantly constrain predictions of EeV proton emission models from non-transient Galactic and nearby extragalactic sources, as illustrated for the particular case of the Galactic center region.

• OSTI ID: 22654520
• Journal Information: Astrophysical Journal Letters, Journal Name: Astrophysical Journal Letters Journal Issue: 2 Vol. 837; ISSN 2041-8205
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
AIR
COSMIC RADIATION
COSMIC RAY DETECTION
COSMIC SHOWERS
DATA ANALYSIS
EEV RANGE
FLUORESCENCE
FORECASTING
PARTICLES
PHOTONS
POINT SOURCES
PROTONS
SPACE
SURFACES