Galactic cosmic rays reach energies of at least a few petaelectronvolts (of the order of 10(15) electronvolts). This implies that our Galaxy contains petaelectronvolt accelerators ('PeVatrons'), but ...all proposed models of Galactic cosmic-ray accelerators encounter difficulties at exactly these energies. Dozens of Galactic accelerators capable of accelerating particles to energies of tens of teraelectronvolts (of the order of 10(13) electronvolts) were inferred from recent γ-ray observations. However, none of the currently known accelerators--not even the handful of shell-type supernova remnants commonly believed to supply most Galactic cosmic rays--has shown the characteristic tracers of petaelectronvolt particles, namely, power-law spectra of γ-rays extending without a cut-off or a spectral break to tens of teraelectronvolts. Here we report deep γ-ray observations with arcminute angular resolution of the region surrounding the Galactic Centre, which show the expected tracer of the presence of petaelectronvolt protons within the central 10 parsecs of the Galaxy. We propose that the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A* is linked to this PeVatron. Sagittarius A* went through active phases in the past, as demonstrated by X-ray outburstsand an outflow from the Galactic Centre. Although its current rate of particle acceleration is not sufficient to provide a substantial contribution to Galactic cosmic rays, Sagittarius A* could have plausibly been more active over the last 10(6)-10(7) years, and therefore should be considered as a viable alternative to supernova remnants as a source of petaelectronvolt Galactic cosmic rays.
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IJS, KISLJ, NUK, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
The inner region of the Milky Way halo harbors a large amount of dark matter (DM). Given its proximity, it is one of the most promising targets to look for DM. We report on a search for the ...annihilations of DM particles using γ-ray observations towards the inner 300 pc of the Milky Way, with the H.E.S.S. array of ground-based Cherenkov telescopes. The analysis is based on a 2D maximum likelihood method using Galactic Center (GC) data accumulated by H.E.S.S. over the last 10 years (2004-2014), and does not show any significant γ-ray signal above background. Assuming Einasto and Navarro-Frenk-White DM density profiles at the GC, we derive upper limits on the annihilation cross section ⟨σv⟩. These constraints are the strongest obtained so far in the TeV DM mass range and improve upon previous limits by a factor 5. For the Einasto profile, the constraints reach ⟨σv⟩ values of 6×10^{-26} cm^{3} s^{-1} in the W^{+}W^{-} channel for a DM particle mass of 1.5 TeV, and 2×10^{-26} cm^{3} s^{-1} in the τ^{+}τ^{-} channel for a 1 TeV mass. For the first time, ground-based γ-ray observations have reached sufficient sensitivity to probe ⟨σv⟩ values expected from the thermal relic density for TeV DM particles.
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CMK, CTK, FMFMET, IJS, NUK, PNG, UM
The nine-year H.E.S.S. Galactic Plane Survey (HGPS) has yielded the most uniform observation scan of the inner Milky Way in the TeV gamma-ray band to date. The sky maps and source catalogue of the ...HGPS allow for a systematic study of the population of TeV pulsar wind nebulae found throughout the last decade. To investigate the nature and evolution of pulsar wind nebulae, for the first time we also present several upper limits for regions around pulsars without a detected TeV wind nebula. Our data exhibit a correlation of TeV surface brightness with pulsar spin-down power Ė. This seems to be caused both by an increase of extension with decreasing Ė, and hence with time, compatible with a power law RPWN(Ė) ~Ė−0.65±0.20, and by a mild decrease of TeV gamma-ray luminosity with decreasing Ė, compatible with L1−10 TeV ~Ė0.59±0.21. We also find that the offsets of pulsars with respect to the wind nebula centre with ages around 10 kyr are frequently larger than can be plausibly explained by pulsar proper motion and could be due to an asymmetric environment. In the present data, it seems that a large pulsar offset is correlated with a high apparent TeV efficiency L1−10 TeV∕Ė. In addition to 14 HGPS sources considered firmly identified pulsar wind nebulae and 5 additional pulsar wind nebulae taken from literature, we find 10 HGPS sources that are likely TeV pulsar wind nebula candidates. Using a model that subsumes the present common understanding of the very high-energy radiative evolution of pulsar wind nebulae, we find that the trends and variations of the TeV observables and limits can be reproduced to a good level, drawing a consistent picture of present-day TeV data and theory.
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Hyperon production in the threshold region was studied in the reaction pp→K+Λp using the time-of-flight spectrometer COSY-TOF. Exclusive data, covering the full phase-space, were taken at three ...different beam momenta pbeam=2.59, 2.68 and 2.85 GeV/c (corresponding to excess energies of ɛ=85, 115 and 171 MeV). Total cross-sections were deduced to be 7.4±0.5 μb, 8.6±0.6 μb and 16.5±0.4 μb, respectively. Differential observables including Dalitz plots were obtained. From the investigation of the Dalitz plot at pbeam=2.85 GeV/c a dominant contribution of the N∗(1650)-resonance to the reaction mechanism was found. In addition the pΛ-final-state interaction turned out to have a significant influence on the Dalitz plot distribution even 171 MeV above threshold.
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IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK
Supernova remnants exhibit shock fronts (shells) that can accelerate charged particles up to very high energies. In the past decade, measurements of a handful of shell-type supernova remnants in very ...high-energy gamma rays have provided unique insights into the acceleration process. Among those objects, RX J1713.7−3946 (also known as G347.3−0.5) has the largest surface brightness, allowing us in the past to perform the most comprehensive study of morphology and spatially resolved spectra of any such very high-energy gamma-ray source. Here we present extensive new H.E.S.S. measurements of RX J1713.7−3946, almost doubling the observation time compared to our previous publication. Combined with new improved analysis tools, the previous sensitivity is more than doubled. The H.E.S.S. angular resolution of 0.048° (0.036° above 2 TeV) is unprecedented in gamma-ray astronomy and probes physical scales of 0.8 (0.6) parsec at the remnant’s location. The new H.E.S.S. image of RX J1713.7−3946 allows us to reveal clear morphological differences between X-rays and gamma rays. In particular, for the outer edge of the brightest shell region, we find the first ever indication for particles in the process of leaving the acceleration shock region. By studying the broadband energy spectrum, we furthermore extract properties of the parent particle populations, providing new input to the discussion of the leptonic or hadronic nature of the gamma-ray emission mechanism.
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Abstract
We report on the discovery of a new fast radio burst (FRB), FRB 150215, with the Parkes radio telescope on 2015 February 15. The burst was detected in real time with a dispersion measure ...(DM) of 1105.6 ± 0.8 pc cm−3, a pulse duration of 2.8
$^{+1.2}_{-0.5}$
ms, and a measured peak flux density assuming that the burst was at beam centre of 0.7
$^{+0.2}_{-0.1}$
Jy. The FRB originated at a Galactic longitude and latitude of 24.66°, 5.28° and 25° away from the Galactic Center. The burst was found to be 43 ± 5 per cent linearly polarized with a rotation measure (RM) in the range −9 < RM < 12 rad m−2 (95 per cent confidence level), consistent with zero. The burst was followed up with 11 telescopes to search for radio, optical, X-ray, γ-ray and neutrino emission. Neither transient nor variable emission was found to be associated with the burst and no repeat pulses have been observed in 17.25 h of observing. The sightline to the burst is close to the Galactic plane and the observed physical properties of FRB 150215 demonstrate the existence of sight lines of anomalously low RM for a given electron column density. The Galactic RM foreground may approach a null value due to magnetic field reversals along the line of sight, a decreased total electron column density from the Milky Way, or some combination of these effects. A lower Galactic DM contribution might explain why this burst was detectable whereas previous searches at low latitude have had lower detection rates than those out of the plane.
Production of antihydrogen Baur, G.; Boero, G.; Brauksiepe, A. ...
Physics letters. B,
02/1996, Volume:
368, Issue:
3
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Results are presented for a measurement for the production of the antihydrogen atom
H
0 ≡
p
e
+
, the simplest atomic bound state of antimatter.
A method has been used by the PS210 collaboration at ...LEAR which assumes that the production of
H
0
is predominantly mediated by the e
+e
−-pair creation via the two-photon mechanism in the antiproton-nucleus interaction. Neutral
H
0
atoms are identified by a unique sequence of characteristics. In principle
H
0
is well suited for investigations of fundamental CPT violation studies under different forces, however, in our investigations we concentrate on the production of this antimatter object, since so far it has never been observed before.
The production of 11 antihydrogen atoms is reported including possibly 2±1 background signals, the observed yield agrees with theoretical predictions.
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IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK
The HERMES recoil detector Airapetian, A; Aschenauer, E C; Belostotski, S ...
Journal of instrumentation,
05/2013, Volume:
8, Issue:
5
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
For the final running period of HERA, a recoil detector was installed at the HERMES experiment to improve measurements of hard exclusive processes in charged-lepton nucleon scattering. Here, deeply ...virtual Compton scattering is of particular interest as this process provides constraints on generalised parton distributions that give access to the total angular momenta of quarks within the nucleon. The HERMES recoil detector was designed to improve the selection of exclusive events by a direct measurement of the four-momentum of the recoiling particle. It consisted of three components: two layers of double-sided silicon strip sensors inside the HERA beam vacuum, a two-barrel scintillating fibre tracker, and a photon detector. All sub-detectors were located inside a solenoidal magnetic field with a field strength of 1 T. The recoil detector was installed in late 2005. After the commissioning of all components was finished in September 2006, it operated stably until the end of data taking at HERA end of June 2007. The present paper gives a brief overview of the physics processes of interest and the general detector design. The recoil detector components, their calibration, the momentum reconstruction of charged particles, and the event selection are described in detail. The paper closes with a summary of the performance of the detection system.
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