HESS J0632+057: A New Gamma-Ray Binary? Hinton, J. A; Skilton, J. L; Funk, S ...
The Astrophysical journal,
01/2009, Letnik:
690, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
The High Energy Stereoscopic System (HESS) survey of the Galactic plane has established the existence of a substantial number (~ 40) of Galactic TeV gamma -ray sources, a large fraction of which ...remain unidentified. HESS J0632+057 is one of a small fraction of these objects, which is point-like in nature (<2' rms), and is one of only two point-like sources that remain unidentified. Follow-up observations of this object with XMM-Newton have revealed an X-ray source coincident with the TeV source and with the massive star MWC 148, of the spectral type B0pe. This source exhibits a hard spectrum, consistent with an absorbed power law with Gamma = 1.26 ± 0.04, and shows significant variability on hour timescales. We discuss this spatial coincidence and the implied spectral energy distribution of this object and argue that it is likely a new gamma -ray binary system with a close resemblance to the three known members of this class and, in particular, to LS I +61 303. Further, X-ray, radio, and optical observations of this system are needed to firmly establish HESS J0632+057 as a new member of this rare class of Galactic objects.
Cosmic rays (CRs) pervade the Galaxy and are thought to be accelerated in supernova shocks. The interaction of CRs with dense interstellar matter has two important effects: (1) high-energy (1 GeV) ...protons produce Delta *g-rays by Delta *p0-meson decay and (2) low-energy (1 GeV) CRs (protons and electrons) ionize the gas. We present here new observations toward a molecular cloud close to the W51C supernova remnant and associated with a recently discovered TeV Delta *g-ray source. Our observations show that the cloud ionization degree is highly enhanced, implying a CR ionization rate ~10--15 s--1, i.e., 100 times larger than the standard value in molecular clouds. This is consistent with the idea that the cloud is irradiated by an enhanced flux of freshly accelerated low-energy CRs. In addition, the observed high CR ionization rate leads to an instability in the chemistry of the cloud, which keeps the electron fraction high, ~10--5, in a large fraction (A v >= 6 mag) of the cloud and low, ~10--7, in the interior. The two states have been predicted in the literature as high- and low-ionization phases (HIP and LIP). This is the observational evidence of their simultaneous presence in a cloud.
The Galactic gamma-ray diffuse emission is currently observed in the GeV-TeV energy range with unprecedented accuracy by the Fermi satellite. Understanding this component is crucial as it provides a ...background to many different signals such as extragalactic sources or annihilating dark matter. It is timely to reinvestigate how it is calculated and to assess the various uncertainties which are likely to affect the accuracy of the predictions. The Galactic gamma-ray diffuse emission is mostly produced above a few GeV by the interactions of cosmic ray primaries impinging on the interstellar material. The theoretical error on that component is derived by exploring various potential sources of uncertainty. Particular attention is paid to cosmic ray propagation. Nuclear cross sections, the proton and helium fluxes at the Earth, the Galactic radial profile of supernova remnants and the hydrogen distribution can also severely affect the signal. The propagation of cosmic ray species throughout the Galaxy is described in the framework of a semi-analytic two-zone diffusion/convection model. This allows to convert the constraints set by the boron-to-carbon data into a theoretical uncertainty on the diffuse emission. New deconvolutions of the HI and CO sky maps are also used to get the hydrogen distribution within the Galaxy. The thickness of the cosmic ray diffusive halo is found to have a significant effect on the Galactic gamma-ray diffuse emission while the interplay between diffusion and convection has little influence on the signal. The uncertainties related to nuclear cross sections and to the primary cosmic ray fluxes at the Earth are significant. The radial distribution of supernova remnants along the Galactic plane turns out to be a key ingredient. As expected, the predictions are extremely sensitive to the spatial distribution of hydrogen within the Milky Way.
The few known γ-ray binary systems are all associated with variable radio and X-ray emission. The TeV source HESS J0632+057, apparently associated with the Be star MWC 148, is plausibly a new member ...of this class. Following the identification of a variable X-ray counterpart to the TeV source we conducted Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT) and Very Large Array (VLA) observations in 2008 June–September to search for the radio counterpart of this object. A point-like radio source at the position of the star is detected in both 1280-MHz GMRT and 5-GHz VLA observations, with an average spectral index, α, of ∼0.6. In the VLA data there is significant flux variability on ∼month time-scales around the mean flux density of ≈0.3 mJy. These radio properties (and the overall spectral energy distribution) are consistent with an interpretation of HESS J0632+057 as a lower power analogue of the established γ-ray binary systems.
In July 2012, as the four ground-based gamma-ray telescopes of the H.E.S.S. (High Energy Stereoscopic System) array reached their tenth year of operation in Khomas Highlands, Namibia, a fifth ...telescope took its first data as part of the system. This new Cherenkov detector, comprising a 614.5m2 reflector with a highly pixelized camera in its focal plane, improves the sensitivity of the current array by a factor two and extends its energy domain down to a few tens of GeV.
The present part I of the paper gives a detailed description of the fifth H.E.S.S. telescope׳s camera, presenting the details of both the hardware and the software, emphasizing the main improvements as compared to previous H.E.S.S. camera technology.
Multivariate methods have been recently introduced and successfully applied for the discrimination of signal from background in the selection of genuine very-high energy γ-ray events with the ...H.E.S.S. Imaging Atmospheric Cerenkov Telescope. The complementary performance of three independent reconstruction methods developed for the H.E.S.S. data analysis, namely Hillas, model and 3D-model suggests the optimization of their combination through the application of a resulting efficient multivariate estimator. In this work the boosted decision tree method is proposed leading to a significant increase in the signal over background ratio compared to the standard approaches. The improved sensitivity is also demonstrated through a comparative analysis of a set of benchmark astrophysical sources.
Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are brief flashes of γ-rays and are considered to be the most energetic explosive phenomena in the Universe
. The emission from GRBs comprises a short (typically tens of ...seconds) and bright prompt emission, followed by a much longer afterglow phase. During the afterglow phase, the shocked outflow-produced by the interaction between the ejected matter and the circumburst medium-slows down, and a gradual decrease in brightness is observed
. GRBs typically emit most of their energy via γ-rays with energies in the kiloelectronvolt-to-megaelectronvolt range, but a few photons with energies of tens of gigaelectronvolts have been detected by space-based instruments
. However, the origins of such high-energy (above one gigaelectronvolt) photons and the presence of very-high-energy (more than 100 gigaelectronvolts) emission have remained elusive
. Here we report observations of very-high-energy emission in the bright GRB 180720B deep in the GRB afterglow-ten hours after the end of the prompt emission phase, when the X-ray flux had already decayed by four orders of magnitude. Two possible explanations exist for the observed radiation: inverse Compton emission and synchrotron emission of ultrarelativistic electrons. Our observations show that the energy fluxes in the X-ray and γ-ray range and their photon indices remain comparable to each other throughout the afterglow. This discovery places distinct constraints on the GRB environment for both emission mechanisms, with the inverse Compton explanation alleviating the particle energy requirements for the emission observed at late times. The late timing of this detection has consequences for the future observations of GRBs at the highest energies.
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.
The blazar Mrk 501 (z = 0.034) was observed at very-high-energy (VHE, E 100 GeV) gamma-ray wavelengths during a bright flare on the night of 2014 June 23-24 (MJD 56832) with the H.E.S.S. phase-II ...array of Cherenkov telescopes. Data taken that night by H.E.S.S. at large zenith angle reveal an exceptional number of gamma-ray photons at multi-TeV energies, with rapid flux variability and an energy coverage extending significantly up to 20 TeV. This data set is used to constrain Lorentz invariance violation (LIV) using two independent channels: a temporal approach considers the possibility of an energy dependence in the arrival time of gamma-rays, whereas a spectral approach considers the possibility of modifications to the interaction of VHE gamma-rays with extragalactic background light (EBL) photons. The non-detection of energy-dependent time delays and the non-observation of deviations between the measured spectrum and that of a supposed power-law intrinsic spectrum with standard EBL attenuation are used independently to derive strong constraints on the energy scale of LIV (EQG) in the subluminal scenario for linear and quadratic perturbations in the dispersion relation of photons. For the case of linear perturbations, the 95% confidence level limits obtained are EQG,1 > 3.6 × 1017 GeV using the temporal approach and EQG,1 > 2.6 × 1019 GeV using the spectral approach. For the case of quadratic perturbations, the limits obtained are EQG,2 > 8.5 × 1010 GeV using the temporal approach and EQG,2 > 7.8 × 1011 GeV using the spectral approach.
Gamma-ray line signatures can be expected in the very-high-energy (E(γ)>100 GeV) domain due to self-annihilation or decay of dark matter (DM) particles in space. Such a signal would be readily ...distinguishable from astrophysical γ-ray sources that in most cases produce continuous spectra that span over several orders of magnitude in energy. Using data collected with the H.E.S.S. γ-ray instrument, upper limits on linelike emission are obtained in the energy range between ∼ 500 GeV and ∼ 25 TeV for the central part of the Milky Way halo and for extragalactic observations, complementing recent limits obtained with the Fermi-LAT instrument at lower energies. No statistically significant signal could be found. For monochromatic γ-ray line emission, flux limits of (2 × 10(-7) -2 × 10(-5)) m(-2) s(-1) sr(-1) and (1 × 10(-8) -2 × 10(-6)) m(-2) s(-1)sr(-1) are obtained for the central part of the Milky Way halo and extragalactic observations, respectively. For a DM particle mass of 1 TeV, limits on the velocity-averaged DM annihilation cross section ⟨σv⟩(χχ → γγ) reach ∼ 10(-27) cm(3)s(-1), based on the Einasto parametrization of the Galactic DM halo density profile.
PDF
