Publication Date:
2011-10-08
Description:
We report the detection of pulsed gamma rays from the Crab pulsar at energies above 100 giga-electron volts (GeV) with the Very Energetic Radiation Imaging Telescope Array System (VERITAS) array of atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes. The detection cannot be explained on the basis of current pulsar models. The photon spectrum of pulsed emission between 100 mega-electron volts and 400 GeV is described by a broken power law that is statistically preferred over a power law with an exponential cutoff. It is unlikely that the observation can be explained by invoking curvature radiation as the origin of the observed gamma rays above 100 GeV. Our findings require that these gamma rays be produced more than 10 stellar radii from the neutron star.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉VERITAS Collaboration -- Aliu, E -- Arlen, T -- Aune, T -- Beilicke, M -- Benbow, W -- Bouvier, A -- Bradbury, S M -- Buckley, J H -- Bugaev, V -- Byrum, K -- Cannon, A -- Cesarini, A -- Christiansen, J L -- Ciupik, L -- Collins-Hughes, E -- Connolly, M P -- Cui, W -- Dickherber, R -- Duke, C -- Errando, M -- Falcone, A -- Finley, J P -- Finnegan, G -- Fortson, L -- Furniss, A -- Galante, N -- Gall, D -- Gibbs, K -- Gillanders, G H -- Godambe, S -- Griffin, S -- Grube, J -- Guenette, R -- Gyuk, G -- Hanna, D -- Holder, J -- Huan, H -- Hughes, G -- Hui, C M -- Humensky, T B -- Imran, A -- Kaaret, P -- Karlsson, N -- Kertzman, M -- Kieda, D -- Krawczynski, H -- Krennrich, F -- Lang, M J -- Lyutikov, M -- Madhavan, A S -- Maier, G -- Majumdar, P -- McArthur, S -- McCann, A -- McCutcheon, M -- Moriarty, P -- Mukherjee, R -- Nunez, P -- Ong, R A -- Orr, M -- Otte, A N -- Park, N -- Perkins, J S -- Pizlo, F -- Pohl, M -- Prokoph, H -- Quinn, J -- Ragan, K -- Reyes, L C -- Reynolds, P T -- Roache, E -- Rose, H J -- Ruppel, J -- Saxon, D B -- Schroedter, M -- Sembroski, G H -- Senturk, G D -- Smith, A W -- Staszak, D -- Tesic, G -- Theiling, M -- Thibadeau, S -- Tsurusaki, K -- Tyler, J -- Varlotta, A -- Vassiliev, V V -- Vincent, S -- Vivier, M -- Wakely, S P -- Ward, J E -- Weekes, T C -- Weinstein, A -- Weisgarber, T -- Williams, D A -- Zitzer, B -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2011 Oct 7;334(6052):69-72. doi: 10.1126/science.1208192.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Department of Physics and Astronomy, Barnard College, Columbia University, NY 10027, USA.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21980105" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
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Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
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