KASCADE-Grande Limits on the Isotropic Diffuse Gamma-Ray Flux between 100 TeV and 1 EeV

Journal Article · Tue Oct 10 04:00:00 EDT 2017 · Astrophysical Journal

DOI:https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/AA8BB7· OSTI ID:22875719

Apel, W. D.; Bekk, K.; Blümer, J.; Bozdog, H.; Daumiller, K.; Doll, P.; Engel, R.; Gils, H. J. ^[1]; Arteaga-Velázquez, J. C. ^[2]; Bertaina, M.; Cantoni, E.; Chiavassa, A.; Pierro, F. Di ^[3]; Brancus, I. M.; Gherghel-Lascu, A. ^[4]; Cossavella, F. ^[5]; Souza, V. de ^[6]; Feng, Z. ^[7]; Fuhrmann, D.; others, and

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1. Institut für Kernphysik, KIT—Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (Germany)
2. Universidad Michoacana, Inst. Física y Matemáticas, Morelia (Mexico)
3. Dipartimento di Fisica, Università degli Studi di Torino (Italy)
4. Horia Hulubei National Institute of Physics and Nuclear Engineering, Bucharest (Romania)
5. Institut für Experimentelle Teilchenphysik, KIT—Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (Germany)
6. Universidade de São Paulo, Instituto de Física de São Carlos (Brazil)
7. Institute of High Energy Physics, Beijing (China)

KASCADE and KASCADE-Grande were multi-detector installations to measure individual air showers of cosmic rays at ultra-high energy. Based on data sets measured by KASCADE and KASCADE-Grande, 90% C.L. upper limits to the flux of gamma-rays in the primary cosmic ray flux are determined in an energy range of 10{sup 14}--10{sup 18} eV. The analysis is performed by selecting air showers with a low muon content as expected for gamma-ray-induced showers compared to air showers induced by energetic nuclei. The best upper limit of the fraction of gamma-rays to the total cosmic ray flux is obtained at 3.7×10{sup 15} eV with 1.1×10{sup −5}. Translated to an absolute gamma-ray flux this sets constraints on some fundamental astrophysical models, such as the distance of sources for at least one of the IceCube neutrino excess models.

• OSTI ID: 22875719
• Journal Information: Astrophysical Journal, Journal Name: Astrophysical Journal Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 848; ISSN ASJOAB; ISSN 0004-637X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
ASTROPHYSICS
COMPARATIVE EVALUATIONS
DISTANCE
GAMMA RADIATION
ICECUBE NEUTRINO DETECTOR
MUONS
NEUTRINOS
PRIMARY COSMIC RADIATION
TEV RANGE 100-1000