Published March 10, 2017 | Version v1
Journal article

A Targeted Search for Point Sources of EeV Photons with the Pierre Auger Observatory

  • 1. Institute for Mathematics, Astrophysics and Particle Physics (IMAPP), Radboud Universiteit, Nijmegen (Netherlands)
  • 2. Laboratório de Instrumentação e Física Experimental de Partículas—LIP and Instituto Superior Técnico—IST, Universidade de Lisboa—UL, Lisbon (Portugal)
  • 3. INFN, Sezione di Torino, Torino (Italy)
  • 4. Laboratoire de Physique Nucléaire et de Hautes Energies (LPNHE), Universités Paris 6 et Paris 7, CNRS-IN2P3, Paris (France)
  • 5. Universidade de São Paulo, Inst. de Física, São Paulo (Brazil)
  • 6. Centro Atómico Bariloche and Instituto Balseiro (CNEA-UNCuyo-CONICET), San Carlos de Bariloche (Argentina)
  • 7. Instituto de Tecnologías en Detección y Astropartículas (CNEA, CONICET, UNSAM), Centro Atómico Constituyentes, Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica, Buenos Aires (Argentina)
  • 8. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, México, D. F., México (Mexico)
  • 9. Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, La Coruña (Spain)
  • 10. Gran Sasso Science Institute (INFN), L'Aquila (Italy)

Description

Simultaneous measurements of air showers with the fluorescence and surface detectors of the Pierre Auger Observatory allow a sensitive search for EeV photon point sources. Several Galactic and extragalactic candidate objects are grouped in classes to reduce the statistical penalty of many trials from that of a blind search and are analyzed for a significant excess above the background expectation. The presented search does not find any evidence for photon emission at candidate sources, and combined p -values for every class are reported. Particle and energy flux upper limits are given for selected candidate sources. These limits significantly constrain predictions of EeV proton emission models from non-transient Galactic and nearby extragalactic sources, as illustrated for the particular case of the Galactic center region.

Availability note (English)

Available from http://dx.doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/aa61a5

Additional details

Identifiers

Publishing Information

Journal Title
Astrophysical Journal Letters
Journal Volume
837
Journal Issue
2
Journal Page Range
[7 p.]
ISSN
2041-8205