TEV GAMMA-RAY OBSERVATIONS OF THE GALACTIC CENTER RIDGE BY VERITAS

Journal Article · Wed Apr 20 00:00:00 EDT 2016 · Astrophysical Journal

DOI:https://doi.org/10.3847/0004-637X/821/2/129· OSTI ID:22663094

Archer, A.; Buckley, J. H.; Bugaev, V. ^[1]; Benbow, W.; Cerruti, M. ^[2]; Bird, R.; Collins-Hughes, E. ^[3]; Buchovecky, M. ^[4]; Byrum, K. ^[5]; Cardenzana, J. V; Eisch, J. D. ^[6]; Chen, X. ^[7]; Ciupik, L. ^[8]; Connolly, M. P. ^[9]; Falcone, A. ^[10]; Feng, Q.; Finley, J. P. ^[11]; Fleischhack, H. ^[12]; Flinders, A. ^[13]; others, and

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1. Department of Physics, Washington University, St. Louis, MO 63130 (United States)
2. Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Amado, AZ 85645 (United States)
3. School of Physics, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4 (Ireland)
4. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095 (United States)
5. Argonne National Laboratory, 9700 S. Cass Avenue, Argonne, IL 60439 (United States)
6. Department of Physics and Astronomy, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011 (United States)
7. Institute of Physics and Astronomy, University of Potsdam, D-14476 Potsdam-Golm (Germany)
8. Astronomy Department, Adler Planetarium and Astronomy Museum, Chicago, IL 60605 (United States)
9. School of Physics, National University of Ireland Galway, University Road, Galway (Ireland)
10. Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, 525 Davey Lab, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802 (United States)
11. Department of Physics and Astronomy, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907 (United States)
12. DESY, Platanenallee 6, D-15738 Zeuthen (Germany)
13. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112 (United States)

The Galactic Center ridge has been observed extensively in the past by both GeV and TeV gamma-ray instruments revealing a wealth of structure, including a diffuse component and the point sources G0.9+0.1 (a composite supernova remnant) and Sgr A* (believed to be associated with the supermassive black hole located at the center of our Galaxy). Previous very high energy (VHE) gamma-ray observations with the H.E.S.S. experiment have also detected an extended TeV gamma-ray component along the Galactic plane in the >300 GeV gamma-ray regime. Here we report on observations of the Galactic Center ridge from 2010 to 2014 by the VERITAS telescope array in the >2 TeV energy range. From these observations we (1) provide improved measurements of the differential energy spectrum for Sgr A* in the >2 TeV gamma-ray regime, (2) provide a detection in the >2 TeV gamma-ray emission from the composite SNR G0.9+0.1 and an improved determination of its multi-TeV gamma-ray energy spectrum, and (3) report on the detection of VER J1746-289, a localized enhancement of >2 TeV gamma-ray emission along the Galactic plane.

• OSTI ID: 22663094
• Journal Information: Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 821, Issue 2; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0004-637X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

79 ASTROPHYSICS
COSMOLOGY AND ASTRONOMY
BLACK HOLES
COSMIC GAMMA SOURCES
DETECTION
EMISSION
ENERGY SPECTRA
GALAXIES
GAMMA RADIATION
GEV RANGE
SUPERNOVA REMNANTS
SUPERNOVAE
TELESCOPES
TEV RANGE