1. High-Statistics Measurement of the Cosmic-Ray Electron Spectrum with H.E.S.S
- Author
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Aharonian, F., Benkhali, F. Ait, Aschersleben, J., Ashkar, H., Backes, M., Martins, V. Barbosa, Batzofin, R., Becherini, Y., Berge, D., Bernlöhr, K., Bi, B., Böttcher, M., Boisson, C., Bolmont, J., de Lavergne, M. de Bony, Borowska, J., Bouyahiaoui, M., Brose, R., Brown, A., Brun, F., Bruno, B., Bulik, T., Burger-Scheidlin, C., Bylund, T., Casanova, S., Celic, J., Cerruti, M., Chand, T., Chandra, S., Chen, A., Chibueze, J., Chibueze, O., Collins, T., Cotter, G., Mbarubucyeye, J. Damascene, Devin, J., Djuvsland, J., Dmytriiev, A., Egberts, K., Einecke, S., Ernenwein, J. -P., Fegan, S., Feijen, K., Fontaine, G., Funk, S., Gabici, S., Gallant, Y. A., Glicenstein, J. F., Glombitza, J., Grolleron, G., Heß, B., Hofmann, W., Holch, T. L., Holler, M., Horns, D., Huang, Zhiqiu, Jamrozy, M., Jankowsky, F., Joshi, V., Jung-Richardt, I., Kasai, E., Katarzynski, K., Kerszberg, D., Khatoon, R., Khelifi, B., Kluzniak, W., Komin, Nu., Kosack, K., Kostunin, D., Kundu, A., Lang, R. G., Stum, S. Le, Leitl, F., Lemiere, A., Lemoine-Goumard, M., Lenain, J. -P., Leuschner, F., Luashvili, A., Mackey, J., Malyshev, D., Marandon, V., Marinos, P., Marti-Devesa, G., Marx, R., Meyer, M., Mitchell, A., Moderski, R., Moghadam, M. O., Mohrmann, L., Montanari, A., Moulin, E., de Naurois, M., Niemiec, J., Ohm, S., Olivera-Nieto, L., Wilhelmi, E. de Ona, Ostrowski, M., Panny, S., Panter, M., Parsons, D., Pensec, U., Peron, G., Pühlhofer, G., Punch, M., Quirrenbach, A., Ravikularaman, S., Regeard, M., Reimer, A., Reimer, O., Reis, I., Ren, H., Reville, B., Rieger, F., Rowell, G., Rudak, B., Ruiz-Velasco, E., Sahakian, V., Salzmann, H., Santangelo, A., Sasaki, M., Schäfer, J., Schüssler, F., Schutte, H. M., Shapopi, J. N. S., Sharma, A., Sol, H., Spencer, S., Stawarz, L., Steinmassl, S., Steppa, C., Suzuki, H., Takahashi, T., Tanaka, T., Taylor, A. M., Terrier, R., Tsirou, M., van Eldik, C., Vecchi, M., Venter, C., Vink, J., Wach, T., Wagner, S. J., Wierzcholska, A., Zacharias, M., Zdziarski, A. A., Zech, A., and Zywucka, N.
- Subjects
Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena - Abstract
Owing to their rapid cooling rate and hence loss-limited propagation distance, cosmic-ray electrons and positrons (CRe) at very high energies probe local cosmic-ray accelerators and provide constraints on exotic production mechanisms such as annihilation of dark matter particles. We present a high-statistics measurement of the spectrum of CRe candidate events from 0.3 to 40 TeV with the High Energy Stereoscopic System (H.E.S.S.), covering two orders of magnitude in energy and reaching a proton rejection power of better than $10^{4}$. The measured spectrum is well described by a broken power law, with a break around 1 TeV, where the spectral index increases from $\Gamma_1 = 3.25$ $\pm$ 0.02 (stat) $\pm$ 0.2 (sys) to $\Gamma_2 = 4.49$ $\pm$ 0.04 (stat) $\pm$ 0.2 (sys). Apart from the break, the spectrum is featureless. The absence of distinct signatures at multi-TeV energies imposes constraints on the presence of nearby CRe accelerators and the local CRe propagation mechanisms., Comment: main paper: 8 pages, 4 figures, supplemental material: 12 pages, 14 figures, accepted for publication in Physical Review Letters https://journals.aps.org/prl/
- Published
- 2024