This paper presents an astroclimatological study of meteorological data on relative humidity, dew-point temperature, air temperature, wind speed and barometric air pressure recorded at four Romanian ...locations (Baisoara, Rosia Montana, Semenic, Ceahlau) and the Nordic Optical Telescope (NOT) located at the Observatorio del Roque de Los Muchachos (ORM), on the island of La Palma, Canary Islands, Spain.
Long-term trends of microclimates are compared in order to identify site-to-site variations. We performed this analysis as part of a site testing campaign aimed at finding the best location for the establishment of a small Cherenkov telescope in Romania. The conditions at the Romanian sites are compared with those of the Canary Islands considered as a reference.
A statistical approach is used for data analysis. Monthly and annual samples are extracted from series of raw data for night-time, day-time and entire-day intervals. For each of these samples, the median values, the standard deviations and the percentages of time when the weather conditions were suitable for the safe operation of a Cherenkov telescope are computed. The distributions of these medians, standard deviations and percentages are analysed in this paper.
Significant differences are found between the Romanian sites and the NOT site. The comparison of the Romanian locations indicates Baisoara to be the best site for the establishment of the telescope, closely followed by Rosia Montana. As these two sites are both located in the Apuseni Mountains, we consider this area to be the optimal place for performing astronomical observations in Romania.
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BFBNIB, FZAB, GIS, IJS, IZUM, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
FADC signal reconstruction for the MAGIC telescope Albert, J.; Aliu, E.; Antoranz, P. ...
Nuclear instruments & methods in physics research. Section A, Accelerators, spectrometers, detectors and associated equipment,
09/2008, Volume:
594, Issue:
3
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Until April 2007 the Major Atmospheric Gamma ray Imaging Cherenkov (MAGIC) telescope used a 300
MSamples/s flash analog-to-digital converter (FADC) system to sample the shaped photomultiplier tube ...(PMT) signals produced by the captured Cherenkov photons of air showers. Different algorithms to reconstruct the signal from the read-out samples (extractors) have been implemented and are described and compared. Criteria based on the obtained charge and time resolution/bias are defined and used to judge the different extractors, by applying them to calibration, cosmic and pedestal signals. The achievable charge and time resolution have been derived as functions of the number of incident photo-electrons.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK
The MAGIC collaboration has recently reported the discovery of g-ray emission from the binary system LS I +61°303 in the TeV energy region. Here we present new observational results on this source in ...the energy range between 300 GeV and 3 TeV. In total, 112 hr of data were taken between 2006 September and December covering four orbital cycles of this object. This large amount of data allowed us to produce an integral flux light curve covering for the first time all orbital phases of LS I +61°303. In addition, we also obtained a differential energy spectrum for two orbital phase bins covering the phase range 0.5 < < 0.6 and 0.6 < < 0.7. The photon index in the two phase bins is consistent within the errors with an average index = 2.6 ± 0.2stat ± 0.2sys. LS I +61°303 was found to be variable at TeV energies on timescales of days. These new MAGIC measurements allowed us to search for intranight variability of the very high energy emission; however, no evidence for flux variability on timescales down to 30 min was found. To test for possible periodic structures in the light curve, we apply the formalism developed by Lomb and Scargle to the LS I +61°303 data taken in 2005 and 2006. We found the LS I +61°303 data set to be periodic with a period of (26.8 ± 0.2) days (with a post-trial chance probability of 10-7), close to the orbital period.
Based on MAGIC observations from 2007 June to July, we have obtained an integral upper limit to the VHE energy emission of the globular cluster M13 of F(E>200 GeV) < 5.1 X 10-12 cm-2 s-1, and ...differential upper limits for E > 140 GeV. Those limits allow us to constrain the population of millisecond pulsars within M13 and to test models for acceleration of leptons inside their magnetospheres and surrounding. We conclude that in M13 either millisecond pulsars are fewer than expected or they accelerate leptons less efficiently than predicted.
One fundamental question about pulsars concerns the mechanism of their pulsed electromagnetic emission. Measuring the high-end region of a pulsar's spectrum would shed light on this question. By ...developing a new electronic trigger, we lowered the threshold of the Major Atmospheric gamma-ray Imaging Cherenkov (MAGIC) telescope to 25 giga-electron volts. In this configuration, we detected pulsed gamma-rays from the Crab pulsar that were greater than 25 giga-electron volts, revealing a relatively high cutoff energy in the phase-averaged spectrum. This indicates that the emission occurs far out in the magnetosphere, hence excluding the polar-cap scenario as a possible explanation of our measurement. The high cutoff energy also challenges the slot-gap scenario. PUBLICATION ABSTRACT
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BFBNIB, NMLJ, NUK, PNG, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
The active galactic nucleus PG 1553+113 was observed by the MAGIC telescope in July 2006 during a multiwavelength campaign, in which telescopes in the optical, X-ray, and very high energies ...participated. Although the MAGIC data were affected by strong atmospheric absorption (calima), they were analyzed after applying a correction. In 8.5 h, a signal was detected with a significance of 5.0σ. The integral flux above 150 GeV was $(2.6\pm0.9)\times 10^{-7}~{\rm ph\,s^{-1}\,m^{-2}}$. By fitting the differential energy spectrum with a power law, a spectral index of $-4.1\pm0.3$ was obtained.
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The nearby dwarf spheroidal galaxy Draco, with its high mass to light ratio, is one of the most auspicious targets for indirect dark matter (DM) searches. Annihilation of hypothetical DM particles ...can result in high-energy -rays, e.g., from neutralino annihilation in the supersymmetric framework. A search for a possible DM signal originating from Draco was performed with the MAGIC telescope during 2007. Analysis of the data results in a flux upper limit (2 capital sigma ) of image photons cm super(-2) s super(-1) for photon energies above 140 GeV, assuming a pointlike source. A comparison with predictions from supersymmetric models is also given. While our results do not constrain the mSUGRA phase parameter space, a very high flux enhancement can be ruled out.
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