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1. An indirect search for dark matter with a combined analysis of dwarf spheroidal galaxies from VERITAS

Author: Acharyya, A., Adams, C. B., Bangale, P., Bartkoske, J. T., Batista, P., Benbow, W., Christiansen, J. L., Chromey, A. J., Duerr, A., Errando, M., Falcone, A., Feng, Q., Foote, G. M., Fortson, L., Furniss, A., Hanlon, W., Hanna, D., Hervet, O., Hinrichs, C. E., Holder, J., Humensky, T. B., Jin, W., Johnson, M. N., Kaaret, P., Kertzman, M., Kieda, D., Kleiner, T. K., Korzoun, N., Kumar, S., Lang, M. J., Lundy, M., Maier, G., McGrath, Conor E., Millard, M. J., Mooney, C. L., Moriarty, P., Mukherjee, R., Ning, W., O'Brien, S., Ong, R. A., Park, N., Pohl, M., Pueschel, E., Quinn, J., Rabinowitz, P. L., Ragan, K., Reynolds, P. T., Ribeiro, D., Roache, E., Ryan, J. L., Sadeh, I., Saha, L., Sembroski, G. H., Shang, R., Splettstoesser, M., Tak, Donggeun, Talluri, A. K., Tucci, J. V., Vassiliev, V. V., Weinstein, A., Williams, D. A., and Wong, S. L.
Subjects: Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena, Astrophysics - Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics, High Energy Physics - Experiment, High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
Abstract: Understanding the nature and identity of dark matter is a key goal in the physics community. In the case that TeV-scale dark matter particles decay or annihilate into standard model particles, very-high-energy (VHE) gamma rays (greater than 100 GeV) will be present in the final state. The Very Energetic Radiation Imaging Telescope Array System (VERITAS) is an imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescope array that can indirectly detect VHE gamma rays in an energy range of 100 GeV to > 30 TeV. Dwarf spheroidal galaxies (dSphs) are ideal candidates in the search for dark matter due to their high dark matter content, high mass-to-light ratios, and their low gamma-ray fluxes from astrophysical processes. This study uses a legacy data set of 638 hours collected on 17 dSphs, built over 11 years with an observing strategy optimized according to the dark matter content of the targets. The study addresses a broad dark matter particle mass range, extending from 200 GeV to 30 PeV. In the absence of a detection, we set the upper limits on the dark matter velocity-weighted annihilation cross section., Comment: 18 pages, 7 figures, 3 tables, accepted in PRD
Published: 2024

2. A multi-wavelength study to decipher the 2017 flare of the blazar OJ 287

Author: Acharyya, A., Adams, C. B., Archer, A., Bangale, P., Bartkoske, J. T., Batista, P., Benbow, W., Brill, A., Caldwell, J. P., Carini, M., Christiansen, J. L., Chromey, A. J., Errando, M., Falcone, A., Feng, Q., Finley, J. P., Foote, J., Fortson, L., Furniss, A., Gallagher, G., Hanlon, W., Hanna, D., Hervet, O., Hinrichs, C. E., Hoang, J., Holder, J., Humensky, T. B., Jin, W., Johnson, M. N., Kaaret, P., Kertzman, M., Kherlakian, M., Kieda, D., Kleiner, T. K., Korzoun, N., Krennrich, F., Kumar, S., Lang, M. J., Lundy, M., Maier, G., EMcGrath, C., Millard, M. J., Millis, J., Mooney, C. L., Moriarty, P., Mukherjee, R., O'Brien, S., Ong, R. A., Pohl, M., Pueschel, E., Quinn, J., Rabinowitz, P. L., Ragan, K., Reynolds, P. T., Ribeiro, D., Roache, E., Ryan, J. L., Sadeh, I., Sadun, A. C., Saha, L., Santander, M., Sembroski, G. H., Shahinyan, K., Shang, R., Splettstoesser, M., Tak, D., Talluri, A. K., Tucci, J. V., Williams, D. A., Wong, S. L., Jorstad, S. G., Lico, R., Lusen, P., and Marscher, A. P.
Subjects: Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena, Astrophysics - Astrophysics of Galaxies
Abstract: In February 2017, the blazar OJ~287 underwent a period of intense multiwavelength activity. It reached a new historic peak in the soft X-ray (0.3-10 keV) band, as measured by Swift-XRT. This event coincides with a very-high-energy (VHE) $\gamma$-ray outburst that led VERITAS to detect emission above 100 GeV, with a detection significance of $10\sigma$ (from 2016 December 9 to 2017 March 31). The time-averaged VHE $\gamma$-ray spectrum was consistent with a soft power law ($\Gamma = -3.81 \pm 0.26$) and an integral flux corresponding to $\sim2.4\%$ that of the Crab Nebula above the same energy. Contemporaneous data from multiple instruments across the electromagnetic spectrum reveal complex flaring behavior, primarily in the soft X-ray and VHE bands. To investigate the possible origin of such an event, our study focuses on three distinct activity states: before, during, and after the February 2017 peak. The spectral energy distributions during these periods suggest the presence of at least two non-thermal emission zones, with the more compact one responsible for the observed flare. Broadband modeling results and observations of a new radio knot in the jet of OJ~287 in 2017 are consistent with a flare originating from a strong recollimation shock outside the radio core., Comment: 21 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal
Published: 2024

3. Dark Matter Line Searches with the Cherenkov Telescope Array

Author: Abe, S., Abhir, J., Abhishek, A., Acero, F., Acharyya, A., Adam, R., Aguasca-Cabot, A., Agudo, I., Aguirre-Santaella, A., Alfaro, J., Alfaro, R., Alvarez-Crespo, N., Batista, R. Alves, Amans, J. -P., Amato, E., Ambrosi, G., Angel, L., Aramo, C., Arcaro, C., Arnesen, T. T. H., Arrabito, L., Asano, K., Ascasibar, Y., Aschersleben, J., Ashkar, H., Backes, M., Baktash, A., Balazs, C., Balbo, M., Larriva, A. Baquero, Martins, V. Barbosa, de Almeida, U. Barres, Barrio, J. A., Batković, I., Batzofin, R., Baxter, J., González, J. Becerra, Beck, G., Benbow, W., Berge, D., Bernardini, E., Bernete, J., Bernlöhr, K., Berti, A., Bertucci, B., Bhattacharjee, P., Bhattacharyya, S., Bigongiari, C., Biland, A., Bissaldi, E., Biteau, J., Blanch, O., Blazek, J., Bocchino, F., Boisson, C., Bolmont, J., Bonnoli, G., Bonollo, A., Bordas, P., Bosnjak, Z., Bottacini, E., Böttcher, M., Bringmann, T., Bronzini, E., Brose, R., Brown, A. M., Brunelli, G., Bulgarelli, A., Bulik, T., Burelli, I., Burmistrov, L., Burton, M., Buscemi, M., Bylund, T., Cailleux, J., Campoy-Ordaz, A., Cantlay, B. K., Capasso, G., Caproni, A., Capuzzo-Dolcetta, R., Caraveo, P., Caroff, S., Carosi, A., Carosi, R., Carquin, E., Carrasco, M. -S., Cassol, F., Castaldini, L., Castrejon, N., Castro-Tirado, A. J., Cerasole, D., Cerruti, M., Chadwick, P. M., Chaty, S., Chen, A. W., Chernyakova, M., Chiavassa, A., Chudoba, J., Chytka, L., Cicciari, G. M., Cifuentes, A., Araujo, C. H. Coimbra, Colapietro, M., Conforti, V., Conte, F., Contreras, J. L., Costa, A., Costantini, H., Cotter, G., Cristofari, P., Cuevas, O., Curtis-Ginsberg, Z., D'Amico, G., D'Ammando, F., Dai, S., Dalchenko, M., Dazzi, F., De Angelis, A., de Lavergne, M. de Bony, De Caprio, V., Pino, E. M. de Gouveia Dal, De Lotto, B., De Lucia, M., de Menezes, R., de Naurois, M., de Souza, V., del Peral, L., del Valle, M. V., Giler, A. G. Delgado, Mengual, J. Delgado, Delgado, C., Dell'aiera, M., della Volpe, D., Depaoli, D., Di Girolamo, T., Di Piano, A., Di Pierro, F., Di Tria, R., Di Venere, L., Díaz, C., Diebold, S., Dinesh, A., Djuvsland, J., Dominik, R. M., Prester, D. Dominis, Donini, A., Dorner, D., Dörner, J., Doro, M., Dournaux, J. -L., Duangchan, C., Dubos, C., Ducci, L., Dwarkadas, V. V., Ebr, J., Eckner, C., Egberts, K., Einecke, S., Elsässer, D., Emery, G., Errando, M., Escanuela, C., Escarate, P., Godoy, M. Escobar, Escudero, J., Esposito, P., Ettori, S., Falceta-Goncalves, D., Fedorova, E., Fegan, S., Feng, Q., Ferrand, G., Ferrarotto, F., Fiandrini, E., Fiasson, A., Filipovic, M., Fioretti, V., Fiori, M., Foffano, L., Guiteras, L. Font, Fontaine, G., Fröse, S., Fukazawa, Y., Fukui, Y., Furniss, A., Galanti, G., Galaz, G., Galelli, C., Gallozzi, S., Gammaldi, V., Garczarczyk, M., Gasbarra, C., Gasparrini, D., Ghalumyan, A., Gianotti, F., Giarrusso, M., Paiva, J. G. Giesbrecht Formiga, Giglietto, N., Giordano, F., Giuffrida, R., Glicenstein, J. -F., Glombitza, J., Goldoni, P., González, J. M., González, M. M., Coelho, J. Goulart, Gradetzke, T., Granot, J., Grasso, D., Grau, R., Gréaux, L., Green, D., Green, J. G., Grolleron, G., Guedes, L. M. V., Gueta, O., Hackfeld, J., Hadasch, D., Hamal, P., Hanlon, W., Hara, S., Harvey, V. M., Hassan, T., Hayashi, K., Heß, B., Heckmann, L., Heller, M., Cadena, S. Hernández, Hervet, O., Hinton, J., Hiroshima, N., Hnatyk, B., Hnatyk, R., Hofmann, W., Holder, J., Horan, D., Horvath, P., Hovatta, T., Hrabovsky, M., Hrupec, D., Iarlori, M., Inada, T., Incardona, F., Inoue, S., Inoue, Y., Iocco, F., Iori, M., Ishio, K., Jamrozy, M., Janecek, P., Jankowsky, F., Jean, P., Quiles, J. Jimenez, Jin, W., Juramy-Gilles, C., Jurysek, J., Kagaya, M., Kalekin, O., Karas, V., Katagiri, H., Kataoka, J., Kaufmann, S., Kazanas, D., Kerszberg, D., Kieda, D. B., Kleiner, T., Kluge, G., Kobayashi, Y., Kohri, K., Komin, N., Kornecki, P., Kosack, K., Kowal, G., Kubo, H., Kushida, J., La Barbera, A., La Palombara, N., Láinez, M., Lamastra, A., Lapington, J., Laporte, P., Lazarević, S., Lazendic-Galloway, J., Lemoine-Goumard, M., Lenain, J. -P., Leone, F., Leonora, E., Leto, G., Lindfors, E., Linhoff, M., Liodakis, I., Lipniacka, A., Lombardi, S., Longo, F., López-Coto, R., López-Moya, M., López-Oramas, A., Loporchio, S., Bahilo, J. Lozano, Luque-Escamilla, P. L., Macias, O., Majumdar, P., Mallamaci, M., Malyshev, D., Mandat, D., Manicò, G., Mariotti, M., Márquez, I., Marquez, P., Marsella, G., Martí, J., Martínez, G. A., Martínez, M., Martinez, O., Marty, C., Mas-Aguilar, A., Mastropietro, M., Mazin, D., Menchiari, S., Mestre, E., Meunier, J. -L., Meyer, D. M. -A., Meyer, M., Miceli, D., Miceli, M., Michailidis, M., Michałowski, J., Miener, T., Miranda, J. M., Mitchell, A., Mizote, M., Mizuno, T., Moderski, R., Molero, M., Molfese, C., Molina, E., Montaruli, T., Moralejo, A., Morcuende, D., Morselli, A., Moulin, E., Zamanillo, V. Moya, Munari, K., Murach, T., Muraczewski, A., Muraishi, H., Nakamori, T., Nayak, A., Nemmen, R., Neto, J. P., Nickel, L., Niemiec, J., Nieto, D., Rosillo, M. Nievas, Nikołajuk, M., Nikolić, L., Nishijima, K., Noda, K., Nosek, D., Novotny, V., Nozaki, S., Ohishi, M., Ohtani, Y., Okumura, A., Olive, J. -F., Ong, R. A., Orienti, M., Orito, R., Orlandini, M., Orlando, E., Orlando, S., Ostrowski, M., Otero-Santos, J., Oya, I., Pagano, I., Pagliaro, A., Palatiello, M., Panebianco, G., Paneque, D., Pantaleo, F. R., Paredes, J. M., Parmiggiani, N., Patricelli, B., Pe'er, A., Pech, M., Pecimotika, M., Pensec, U., Peresano, M., Pérez-Romero, J., Persic, M., Peters, K. P., Petruk, O., Piano, G., Pierre, E., Pietropaolo, E., Pihet, M., Pinchbeck, L., Pirola, G., Pittori, C., Plard, C., Podobnik, F., Pohl, M., Pollet, V., Ponti, G., Prandini, E., Principe, G., Priyadarshi, C., Produit, N., Prouza, M., Pueschel, E., Pühlhofer, G., Pumo, M. L., Queiroz, F., Quirrenbach, A., Rainò, S., Rando, R., Razzaque, S., Regeard, M., Reimer, A., Reimer, O., Reisenegger, A., Rhode, W., Ribeiro, D., Ribó, M., Ricci, C., Richtler, T., Rico, J., Rieger, F., Riitano, L., Rizi, V., Roache, E., Fernandez, G. Rodriguez, Frías, M. D. Rodríguez, Rodríguez-Vázquez, J. J., Romano, P., Romeo, G., Rosado, J., de Leon, A. Rosales, Rowell, G., Rudak, B., Ruiter, A. J., Rulten, C. B., Sadeh, I., Saha, L., Saito, T., Salzmann, H., Sánchez-Conde, M., Sandaker, H., Sangiorgi, P., Sano, H., Santander, M., Santos-Lima, R., Sapienza, V., Šarić, T., Sarkar, A., Sarkar, S., Saturni, F. G., Savarese, S., Scherer, A., Schiavone, F., Schipani, P., Schleicher, B., Schovanek, P., Schubert, J. L., Schwanke, U., Arroyo, M. Seglar, Seitenzahl, I. R., Sergijenko, O., Servillat, M., Siegert, T., Siejkowski, H., Siqueira, C., Sliusar, V., Slowikowska, A., Sol, H., Spencer, S. T., Spiga, D., Stamerra, A., Stanič, S., Starecki, T., Starling, R., Stawarz, Ł., Steppa, C., Hatlen, E. Sæther, Stolarczyk, T., Strišković, J., Suda, Y., Świerk, P., Tajima, H., Tak, D., Takahashi, M., Takeishi, R., Tavernier, T., Tejedor, L. A., Terauchi, K., Teshima, M., Testa, V., Tian, W. W., Tibaldo, L., Tibolla, O., Peixoto, C. J. Todero, Torradeflot, F., Torres, D. F., Tosti, G., Tothill, N., Toussenel, F., Tramacere, A., Travnicek, P., Tripodo, G., Trois, A., Truzzi, S., Tutone, A., Vaclavek, L., Vacula, M., Vallania, P., Vallés, R., van Eldik, C., van Scherpenberg, J., Vandenbroucke, J., Vassiliev, V., Acosta, M. Vázquez, Vecchi, M., Ventura, S., Vercellone, S., Verna, G., Viana, A., Viaux, N., Vigliano, A., Vignatti, J., Vigorito, C. F., Villanueva, J., Visentin, E., Vitale, V., Vodeb, V., Voisin, V., Voitsekhovskyi, V., Vorobiov, S., Voutsinas, G., Vovk, I., Vuillaume, T., Wagner, S. J., Walter, R., White, M., White, R., Wierzcholska, A., Will, M., Williams, D. A., Wohlleben, F., Wolter, A., Yamamoto, T., Yang, L., Yoshida, T., Yoshikoshi, T., Zaharijas, G., Zampieri, L., Sanchez, R. Zanmar, Zavrtanik, D., Zavrtanik, M., Zdziarski, A. A., Zech, A., Zhang, W., Zhdanov, V. I., Ziętara, K., Živec, M., and Zuriaga-Puig, J.
Subjects: High Energy Physics - Phenomenology, Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena, High Energy Physics - Experiment
Abstract: Monochromatic gamma-ray signals constitute a potential smoking gun signature for annihilating or decaying dark matter particles that could relatively easily be distinguished from astrophysical or instrumental backgrounds. We provide an updated assessment of the sensitivity of the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) to such signals, based on observations of the Galactic centre region as well as of selected dwarf spheroidal galaxies. We find that current limits and detection prospects for dark matter masses above 300 GeV will be significantly improved, by up to an order of magnitude in the multi-TeV range. This demonstrates that CTA will set a new standard for gamma-ray astronomy also in this respect, as the world's largest and most sensitive high-energy gamma-ray observatory, in particular due to its exquisite energy resolution at TeV energies and the adopted observational strategy focussing on regions with large dark matter densities. Throughout our analysis, we use up-to-date instrument response functions, and we thoroughly model the effect of instrumental systematic uncertainties in our statistical treatment. We further present results for other potential signatures with sharp spectral features, e.g.~box-shaped spectra, that would likewise very clearly point to a particle dark matter origin., Comment: 44 pages JCAP style (excluding author list and references), 19 figures; minor changes to match published version
Published: 2024
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4. TELAMON: Effelsberg monitoring of AGN jets with very-high-energy astroparticle emission -- I. Program description and sample characterization

Author: Eppel, F., Kadler, M., Heßdörfer, J., Benke, P., Debbrecht, L., Eich, J., Gokus, A., Hämmerich, S., Kirchner, D., Paraschos, G. F., Rösch, F., Schulga, W., Sinapius, J., Weber, P., Bach, U., Dorner, D., Edwards, P. G., Giroletti, M., Kraus, A., Hervet, O., Koyama, S., Krichbaum, T. P., Mannheim, K., Ros, E., Zacharias, M., and Zensus, J. A.
Subjects: Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Abstract: Aims. We introduce the TELAMON program which is using the Effelsberg 100-m telescope to monitor the radio spectra of active galactic nuclei (AGN) under scrutiny in astroparticle physics, specifically TeV blazars and candidate neutrino-associated AGN. Here, we present and characterize our main sample of TeV-detected blazars. Methods. We analyze the data sample from the first ~2.5 years of observations between August 2020 and February 2023 in the range from 14 GHz to 45 GHz. During this pilot phase, we have observed all 59 TeV-detected blazars in the Northern Hemisphere (i.e., Dec. >0{\deg}) known at the time of observation. We discuss the basic data reduction and calibration procedures used for all TELAMON data and introduce a sub-band averaging method used to calculate average light curves for the sources in our sample. Results. The TeV-selected sources in our sample exhibit a median flux density of 0.12 Jy at 20 mm, 0.20 Jy at 14 mm and 0.60 Jy at 7 mm. The spectrum for most of the sources is consistent with a flat radio spectrum and we find a median spectral index ($S(\nu)\propto\nu^\alpha$) of $\alpha=-0.11$. Our results on flux density and spectral index are consistent with previous studies of TeV-selected blazars. Compared to the GeV-selected F-GAMMA sample, TELAMON sources are significantly fainter in the radio band. This is consistent with the double-humped spectrum of blazars being shifted towards higher frequencies for TeV-emitters (in particular for high-synchrotron peaked BL Lac type objects), which results in a lower radio flux density. The spectral index distribution of our TeV-selected blazar sample is not significantly different from the GeV-selected F-GAMMA sample. Moreover, we present a strategy to track the light curve evolution of sources in our sample for future variability and correlation analysis., Comment: 16 pages, 11 figures, 4 tables, accepted for publication in A&A
Published: 2024

5. VERITAS contributions to the 38th International Cosmic Ray Conference

Author: Acharyya, A., Adams, C. B., Archer, A., Bangale, P., Bartkoske, J. T., Batista, P., Benbow, W., Christiansen, J. L., Chromey, A. J., Duerr, A., Errando, M., Feng, Q., Foote, G. M., Fortson, L., Furniss, A., Hanlon, W., Hervet, O., Hinrichs, C. E., Hoang, J., Holder, J., Hughes, Z., Humensky, T. B., Jin, W., Johnson, M. N., Kertzman, M., Kherlakian, M., Kieda, D., Kleiner, T. K., Korzoun, N., Kumar, S., Lang, M. J., Lundy, M., Maier, G., McGrath, C. E, Millard, M. J., Mooney, C. L., Moriarty, P., Mukherjee, R., O'Brien, S., Ong, R. A., Park, N., Poggemann, C., Pohl, M., Pueschel, E., Quinn, J., Rabinowitz, P. L., Ragan, K., Reynolds, P. T., Ribeiro, D., Roache, E., Ryan, J. L., Sadeh, I., Saha, L., Santander, M., Sembroski, G. H., Shang, R., Splettstoesser, M., Talluri, A. K., Tucci, J. V., Vassiliev, V. V., Weinstein, A., Williams, D. A., Wong, S. L., and Woo, J.
Subjects: Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Abstract: Compilation of papers presented by the VERITAS Collaboration at the 38th International Cosmic Ray Conference (ICRC), held July 26 through August 3, 2023 in Nagoya, Japan., Comment: html page. ICRC 2023, Nagoya, Japan
Published: 2023

6. A multi-wavelength investigation of PSR J2229+6114 and its pulsar wind nebula in the radio, X-ray, and gamma-ray bands

Author: Pope, I., Mori, K., Abdelmaguid, M., Gelfand, J. D., Reynolds, S. P., Safi-Harb, S., Hailey, C. J., An, H., Collaboration, VERITAS, Bangale, P., Batista, P., Benbow, W., Buckley, J. H., Capasso, M., Christiansen, J. L., Chromey, A. J., Falcone, A., Feng, Q., Finley, J. P., Foote, G. M, Gallagher, G., Hanlon, W. F, Hanna, D., Hervet, O., Holder, J., Humensky, T. B., Jin, W., Kaaret, P., Kertzman, M., Kieda, D., Kleiner, T. K., Korzoun, N., Krennrich, F., Kumar, S., Lang, M. J., Maier, G., McGrath, C. E, Mooney, C. L., Moriarty, P., Mukherjee, R., O'Brien, S., Ong, R. A., Park, N., Patel, S. R., Pfrang, K., Pohl, M., Pueschel, E., Quinn, J., Ragan, K., Reynolds, P. T., Roache, E., Sadeh, I., Saha, L., Sembroski, G. H., Tak, D., Tucci, J. V., Weinstein, A., Williams, D. A., and Woo, J.
Subjects: Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Abstract: G106.3$+$2.7, commonly considered a composite supernova remnant (SNR), is characterized by a boomerang-shaped pulsar wind nebula (PWN) and two distinct ("head" & "tail") regions in the radio band. A discovery of very-high-energy (VHE) gamma-ray emission ($E_\gamma > 100$ GeV) followed by the recent detection of ultra-high-energy (UHE) gamma-ray emission ($E_\gamma > 100$ TeV) from the tail region suggests that G106.3$+$2.7 is a PeVatron candidate. We present a comprehensive multi-wavelength study of the Boomerang PWN (100" around PSR J2229+6114) using archival radio and Chandra data obtained from two decades ago, a new NuSTAR X-ray observation from 2020, and upper limits on gamma-ray fluxes obtained by Fermi and VERITAS observatories. The NuSTAR observation allowed us to detect a 51.67 ms spin period from the pulsar PSR J2229+6114 and the PWN emission characterized by a power-law model with $\Gamma = 1.52\pm0.06$ up to 20 keV. Contrary to the previous radio study by Kothes et al. 2006, we prefer a much lower PWN B-field ($B\sim3$ $\mu$G) and larger distance ($d \sim 8$ kpc) based on (1) the non-varying X-ray flux over the last two decades, (2) the energy-dependent X-ray PWN size resulting from synchrotron burn-off and (3) the multi-wavelength spectral energy distribution (SED) data. Our SED model suggests that the PWN is currently re-expanding after being compressed by the SNR reverse shock $\sim 1000$ years ago. In this case, the head region should be formed by GeV--TeV electrons injected earlier by the pulsar propagating into the low density environment.
Published: 2023

7. TELAMON: Effelsberg Monitoring of AGN Jets with Very-High-Energy Astroparticle Emissions -- Polarization properties

Author: Heßdörfer, J., Kadler, M., Benke, P., Debbrecht, L., Eich, J., Eppel, F., Gokus, A., Hämmerich, S., Kirchner, D., Paraschos, G. F., Rösch, F., Schulga, W., Sinapius, J., Weber, P., Bach, U., Berge, D., Buson, S., Dorner, D., Edwards, P. G., Fromm, C. M., Giroletti, M., Hervet, O., Kappes, A., Koyama, S., Kraus, A., Krichbaum, T. P., Lindfors, E., Mannheim, K., Ojha, R., Pueschel, E., Ros, E., Schleicher, B., Sitarek, J., Wilms, J., Zacharias, M., and Zensus, J. A.
Subjects: Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Abstract: We present recent results of the TELAMON program, which is using the Effelsberg 100-m telescope to monitor the radio spectra of active galactic nuclei (AGN) under scrutiny in astroparticle physics, namely TeV blazars and neutrino-associated AGN. Our sample includes all known Northern TeV-emitting blazars as well as blazars positionally coincident with IceCube neutrino alerts. Polarization can give additional insight into the source properties, as the polarized emission is often found to vary on different timescales and amplitudes than the total intensity emission. Here, we present an overview of the polarization properties of the TeV-emitting TELAMON sources at four frequencies in the 20 mm and 7 mm bands. While at 7 mm roughly $82\,\%$ of all observed sources are found to be significantly polarized, for 20 mm the percentage is $\sim58\,\%$. We find that most of the sources exhibit mean fractional polarizations of $<5\%$, matching the expectations of rather low polarization levels in these sources from previous studies at lower radio frequencies. Nevertheless, we demonstrate examples of how the polarized emission can provide additional information over the total intensity., Comment: 9 pages, 2 figures, Proceedings of the 38th International Cosmic Ray Conference (ICRC2023)
Published: 2023

8. Prospects for $\gamma$-ray observations of the Perseus galaxy cluster with the Cherenkov Telescope Array

Author: Consortium, The Cherenkov Telescope Array, Abe, K., Abe, S., Acero, F., Acharyya, A., Adam, R., Aguasca-Cabot, A., Agudo, I., Aguirre-Santaella, A., Alfaro, J., Alfaro, R., Alvarez-Crespo, N., Batista, R. Alves, Amans, J. -P., Amato, E., Angüner, E. O., Antonelli, L. A., Aramo, C., Araya, M., Arcaro, C., Arrabito, L., Asano, K., Ascasíbar, Y., Aschersleben, J., Ashkar, H., Stuani, L. Augusto, Baack, D., Backes, M., Baktash, A., Balazs, C., Balbo, M., Ballester, O., Larriva, A. Baquero, Martins, V. Barbosa, de Almeida, U. Barres, Barrio, J. A., Batista, P. I., Batkovic, I., Batzofin, R., Baxter, J., González, J. Becerra, Beck, G., Tjus, J. Becker, Benbow, W., Medrano, J. Bernete, Bernlöhr, K., Berti, A., Bertucci, B., Beshley, V., Bhattacharjee, P., Bhattacharyya, S., Bi, B., Biederbeck, N., Biland, A., Bissaldi, E., Biteau, J., Blanch, O., Blazek, J., Boisson, C., Bolmont, J., Bordas, P., Bosnjak, Z., Bottacini, E., Bradascio, F., Braiding, C., Bronzini, E., Brose, R., Brown, A. M., Brun, F., Brunetti, G., Bucciantini, N., Bulgarelli, A., Burelli, I., Burmistrov, L., Burton, M., Bylund, T., Calisse, P. G., Campoy-Ordaz, A., Cantlay, B. K., Capalbi, M., Caproni, A., Capuzzo-Dolcetta, R., Caraveo, P., Caroff, S., Carosi, R., Carquin, E., Carrasco, M. -S., Cascone, E., Cassol, F., Castro-Tirado, A. J., Cerasole, D., Cerruti, M., Chadwick, P., Chaty, S., Chen, A. W., Chernyakova, M., Chiavassa, A., Chudoba, J., Chytka, L., Cifuentes, A., Araujo, C. H. Coimbra, Conforti, V., Conte, F., Contreras, J. L., Cortina, J., Costa, A., Costantini, H., Cotter, G., Cristofari, P., Cuevas, O., Curtis-Ginsberg, Z., D'Amico, G., D'Ammando, F., Dalchenko, M., Dazzi, F., de Lavergne, M. de Bony, De Caprio, V., Laadim, F. De Frondat, Pino, E. M. de Gouveia Dal, De Lotto, B., De Lucia, M., De Martino, D., de Menezes, R., de Naurois, M., De Simone, N., de Souza, V., del Valle, M. V., Delagnes, E., Giler, A. G. Delgado, Delgado, C., Dell'aiera, M., della Volpe, D., Depaoli, D., Di Girolamo, T., Di Piano, A., Di Pierro, F., Di Tria, R., Di Venere, L., Diebold, S., Djannati-Ataï, A., Djuvsland, J., Dominik, R. M., Donini, A., Dorner, D., Dörner, J., Doro, M., Anjos, R. D. C. dos, Dournaux, J. -L., Duangchan, C., Dubos, C., Dumora, D., Dwarkadas, V. V., Ebr, J., Eckner, C., Egberts, K., Einecke, S., Elsässer, D., Emery, G., Godoy, M. Escobar, Escudero, J., Esposito, P., Ettori, S., Evoli, C., Falceta-Goncalves, D., Ramazani, V. Fallah, Fattorini, A., Faure, A., Fedorova, E., Fegan, S., Feijen, K., Feng, Q., Ferrand, G., Ferrarotto, F., Fiandrini, E., Fiasson, A., Filipovic, M., Fioretti, V., Foffano, L., Guiteras, L. Font, Fontaine, G., Fröse, S., Fukazawa, Y., Fukui, Y., Gaggero, D., Galanti, G., Gallozzi, S., Gammaldi, V., Garczarczyk, M., Gasbarra, C., Gasparrini, D., Gaug, M., Ghalumyan, A., Gianotti, F., Giarrusso, M., Giesbrecht, J., Giglietto, N., Giordano, F., Glicenstein, J. -F., Göksu, H., Goldoni, P., González, J. M., González, M. M., Coelho, J. Goulart, Granot, J., Grau, R., Gréaux, L., Green, D., Green, J. G., Grenier, I., Grolleron, G., Grube, J., Gueta, O., Hackfeld, J., Hadasch, D., Hamal, P., Hanlon, W., Hara, S., Harvey, V. M., Hassan, T., Heckmann, L., Heller, M., Cadena, S. Hernández, Hervet, O., Hie, J., Hiroshima, N., Hnatyk, B., Hnatyk, R., Hoang, J., Hoffmann, D., Hofmann, W., Holder, J., Horan, D., Horvath, P., Hrupec122, D., Hütten, M., Iarlori, M., Inada, T., Incardona, F., Inoue, S., Iocco, F., Iori, M., Jamrozy, M., Janecek, P., Jankowsky, F., Jarnot, C., Jean, P., Martínez, I. Jiménez, Jin, W., Juramy-Gilles, C., Jurysek, J., Kagaya, M., Kantzas, D., Karas, V., Katagiri, H., Kataoka, J., Kaufmann, S., Kerszberg, D., Khélifi, B., Kissmann, R., Kleiner, T., Kluge, G., Kluźniak, W., Knödlseder, J., Kobayashi, Y., Kohri, K., Komin, N., Kornecki, P., Kosack, K., Kowal, G., Kubo, H., Kushida, J., La Barbera, A., La Palombara, N., Láinez, M., Lamastra, A., Lapington, J., Laporte, P., Lazarević, S., Leitgeb, F., Lemoine-Goumard, M., Lenain, J. -P., Leone, F., Leto, G., Leuschner, F., Lindfors, E., Linhoff, M., Liodakis, I., Lombardi, S., Longo, F., López-Coto, R., López-Moya, M., López-Oramas, A., Loporchio, S., Luque-Escamilla, P. L., Macias, O., Mackey, J., Majumdar, P., Malyshev, D., Mandat, D., Manganaro, M., Manicò, G., Mariotti, M., Markoff, S., Márquez, I., Marquez, P., Marsella, G., Martínez, G. A., Martínez, M., Martinez, O., Marty, C., Mas-Aguilar, A., Mastropietro, M., Maurin, G., Mazin, D., Melkumyan, D., Mello, A. J. T. S., Meunier, J. -L., Meyer, D. M. -A., Meyer, M., Miceli, D., Michailidis, M., Michałowski, J., Miener, T., Miranda, J. M., Mitchell, A., Mizote, M., Mizuno, T., Moderski, R., Molero, M., Molfese, C., Molina, E., Montaruli, T., Morcuende, D., Morik, K., Morlino, G., Morselli, A., Moulin, E., Zamanillo, V. Moya, Munari, K., Murach, T., Muraczewski, A., Muraishi, H., Nagataki, S., Nakamori, T., Nemmen, R., Neyroud, N., Nickel, L., Niemiec, J., Nieto, D., Rosillo, M. Nievas, Nikołajuk, M., Nishijima, K., Noda, K., Nosek, D., Novotny, V., Nozaki, S., O'Brien, P., Ohishi, M., Ohtani, Y., Okumura, A., Olive, J. -F., Olmi, B., Ong, R. A., Orienti, M., Orito, R., Orlandini, M., Orlando, E., Ostrowski, M., Oya, I., Pagliaro, A., Palatiello, M., Panebianco, G., Paneque, D., Pantaleo, F. R., Paoletti, R., Paredes, J. M., Parmiggiani, N., Patel, S. R., Patricelli, B., Pavlović, D., Pech, M., Pecimotika, M., Pensec, U., Peresano, M., Pérez-Romero, J., Peron, G., Persic, M., Petrucci, P. -O., Petruk, O., Piano, G., Pierre, E., Pietropaolo, E., Pintore, F., Pirola, G., Pita, S., Plard, C., Podobnik, F., Pohl, M., Polo, M., Pons, E., Ponti, G., Prandini, E., Prast, J., Principe, G., Priyadarshi, C., Produit, N., Pueschel, E., Pühlhofer, G., Pumo, M. L., Punch, M., Queiroz, F., Quirrenbach, A., Rainò, S., Rando, R., Razzaque, S., Recchia, S., Regeard, M., Reichherzer, P., Reimer, A., Reimer, O., Reisenegger, A., Rhode, W., Ribeiro, D., Ribó, M., Richtler, T., Rico, J., Rieger, F., Righi, C., Riitano, L., Rizi, V., Roache, E., Fernandez, G. Rodriguez, Rodríguez-Vázquez, J. J., Romano, P., Romeo, G., Rosado, J., de Leon, A. Rosales, Rowell, G., Rudak, B., Rulten, C. B., Russo, F., Sadeh, I., Saha, L., Saito, T., Salzmann, H., Sanchez, D., Sánchez-Conde, M., Sangiorgi, P., Sano, H., Santander, M., Santangelo, A., Santos-Lima, R., Sanuy, A., Šarić, T., Sarkar, A., Sarkar, S., Satalecka, K., Saturni, F. G., Savchenko, V., Scherer, A., Schipani, P., Schleicher, B., Schubert, J. L., Schussler, F., Schwanke, U., Schwefer, G., Arroyo, M. Seglar, Seiji, S., Semikoz, D., Sergijenko, O., Servillat, M., Sguera, V., Shang, R. Y., Sharma, P., Siejkowski, H., Sinha, A., Siqueira, C., Sliusar, V., Slowikowska, A., Sol, H., Specovius, A., Spencer, S. T., Spiga, D., Stamerra, A., Stanič, S., Starecki, T., Starling, R., Stawarz, Ł., Steppa, C., Stolarczyk, T., Strišković, J., Suda, Y., Suomijärvi, T., Tajima, H., Tak, D., Takahashi, M., Takeishi, R., Tanaka, S. J., Tavernier, T., Tejedor, L. A., Terauchi, K., Terrier, R., Teshima, M., Tian, W. W., Tibaldo, L., Tibolla, O., Torradeflot, F., Torres, D. F., Torresi, E., Tosti, G., Tosti, L., Tothill, N., Toussenel, F., Touzard, V., Tramacere, A., Travnicek, P., Tripodo, G., Truzzi, S., Tsiahina, A., Tutone, A., Vacula, M., Vallage, B., Vallania, P., van Eldik, C., van Scherpenberg, J., Vandenbroucke, J., Vassiliev, V., Acosta, M. Vázquez, Vecchi, M., Ventura, S., Vercellone, S., Verna, G., Viana, A., Viaux, N., Vigliano, A., Vigorito, C. F., Vitale, V., Vodeb, V., Voisin, V., Vorobiov, S., Voutsinas, G., Vovk, I., Vuillaume, T., Wagner, S. J., Walter, R., Wechakama, M., White, R., Wierzcholska, A., Will, M., Williams, D. A., Wohlleben, F., Wolter, A., Yamamoto, T., Yamazaki, R., Yoshida, T., Yoshikoshi, T., Zacharias, M., Zaharijas, G., Zavrtanik, D., Zavrtanik, M., Zdziarski, A. A., Zech, A., Zhdanov, V. I., Živec, M., Zuriaga-Puig, J., and Luque, P. De la Torre
Subjects: Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena, Astrophysics - Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics, High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
Abstract: Galaxy clusters are expected to be dark matter (DM) reservoirs and storage rooms for the cosmic-ray protons (CRp) that accumulate along the cluster's formation history. Accordingly, they are excellent targets to search for signals of DM annihilation and decay at gamma-ray energies and are predicted to be sources of large-scale gamma-ray emission due to hadronic interactions in the intracluster medium. We estimate the sensitivity of the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) to detect diffuse gamma-ray emission from the Perseus galaxy cluster. We perform a detailed spatial and spectral modelling of the expected signal for the DM and the CRp components. For each, we compute the expected CTA sensitivity. The observing strategy of Perseus is also discussed. In the absence of a diffuse signal (non-detection), CTA should constrain the CRp to thermal energy ratio within the radius $R_{500}$ down to about $X_{500}<3\times 10^{-3}$, for a spatial CRp distribution that follows the thermal gas and a CRp spectral index $\alpha_{\rm CRp}=2.3$. Under the optimistic assumption of a pure hadronic origin of the Perseus radio mini-halo and depending on the assumed magnetic field profile, CTA should measure $\alpha_{\rm CRp}$ down to about $\Delta\alpha_{\rm CRp}\simeq 0.1$ and the CRp spatial distribution with 10% precision. Regarding DM, CTA should improve the current ground-based gamma-ray DM limits from clusters observations on the velocity-averaged annihilation cross-section by a factor of up to $\sim 5$, depending on the modelling of DM halo substructure. In the case of decay of DM particles, CTA will explore a new region of the parameter space, reaching models with $\tau_{\chi}>10^{27}$s for DM masses above 1 TeV. These constraints will provide unprecedented sensitivity to the physics of both CRp acceleration and transport at cluster scale and to TeV DM particle models, especially in the decay scenario., Comment: 93 pages (including author list, appendix and references), 143 figures. Submitted to JCAP
Published: 2023
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9. Multiwavelength Observations of the Blazar PKS 0735+178 in Spatial and Temporal Coincidence with an Astrophysical Neutrino Candidate IceCube-211208A

Author: Acharyya, A., Adams, C. B., Archer, A., Bangale, P., Bartkoske, J. T., Batista, P., Benbow, W., Brill, A., Buckley, J. H., Christiansen, J. L., Chromey, A. J., Errando, M., Falcone, A., Feng, Q., Foote, G. M., Fortson, L., Furniss, A., Gallagher, G., Hanlon, W., Hanna, D., Hervet, O., Hinrichs, C. E., Hoang, J., Holder, J., Humensky, T. B., Jin, W., Kaaret, P., Kertzman, M., Kherlakian, M., Kieda, D., Kleiner, T. K., Korzoun, N., Kumar, S., Lang, M. J., Lundy, M., Maier, G., McGrath, C. E, Millard, M. J., Millis, J., Mooney, C. L., Moriarty, P., Mukherjee, R., O'Brien, S., Ong, R. A., Pohl, M., Pueschel, E., Quinn, J., Ragan, K., Reynolds, P. T., Ribeiro, D., Roache, E., Sadeh, I., Sadun, A. C., Saha, L., Santander, M., Sembroski, G. H., Shang, R., Splettstoesser, M., Talluri, A. Kaushik, Tucci, J. V., Vassiliev, V. V., Weinstein, A., Williams, D. A., Wong, S. L., Woo, J., Aharonian, F., Aschersleben, J., Backes, M., Martins, V. Barbosa, Batzofin, R., Becherini, Y., Berge, D., Bernlohr, K., Bi, B., Bottcher, M., Boisson, C., Bolmont, J., de Lavergne, M. de Bony, Borowska, J., Bouyahiaoui, M., Bradascio, F., Breuhaus, M., Brose, R., Brun, F., Bruno, B., Bulik, T., Burger-Scheidlin, C., Caroff, S., Casanova, S., Cecil, R., Celic, J., Cerruti, M., Chand, T., Chandra, S., Chen, A., Chibueze, J., Chibueze, O., Cotter, G., Dai, S., Mbarubucyeye, J. Damascene, Djannati-Atai, A., Dmytriiev, A., Doroshenko, V., Einecke, S., Ernenwein, J. -P., de Clairfontaine, G. Fichet, Filipovic, M., Fontaine, G., Fussling, M., Funk, S., Gabici, S., Ghafourizadeh, S., Giavitto, G., Glawion, D., Glicenstein, J. F., Goswami, P., Grolleron, G., Haerer, L., Hinton, J. A., Holch, T. L., Holler, M., Horns, D., Jamrozy, M., Jankowsky, F., Joshi, V., Jung-Richardt, I., Kasai, E., Katarzynski, K., Khatoon, R., Khelifi, B., Klepser, S., Kluzniak, W., Kosack, K., Kostunin, D., Lang, R. G., Stum, S. Le, Lemiere, A., Lenain, J. P., Leuschner, F., Lohse, T., Luashvili, A., Lypova, I., Mackey, J., Malyshev, D., Marandon, V., Marchegiani, P., Marcowith, A., Marti-Devesa, G., Marx, R., Mitchell, A., Moderski, R., Mohrmann, L., Montanari, A., Moulin, E., Murach, T., Nakashima, K., Niemiec, J., Noel, A. Priyana, O'Brien, P., Olivera-Nieto, L., Wilhelmi, E. de Ona, Ostrowski, M., Panny, S., Panter, M., Peron, G., Prokhorov, D. A., Puhlhofer, G., Punch, M., Quirrenbach, A., Reichherzer, P., Reimer, A., Reimer, O., Ren, H., Renaud, M., Rieger, F., Rudak, B., Ruiz-Velasco, E., Sahakian, V., Santangelo, A., Sasaki, M., Schafer, J., Schussler, F., Schutte, H. M., Schwanke, U., Shapopi, J. N. S., Specovius, A., Spencer, S., Stawarz, L., Steenkamp, R., Steinmassl, S., Sushch, I., Suzuki, H., Takahashi, T., Tanaka, T., Terrier, R., van Eldik, C., Vecchi, M., Veh, J., Venter, C., Vink, J., White, R., Wierzcholska, A., Wong, Yu Wun, Zacharias, M., Zargaryan, D., Zdziarski, A. A., Zech, A., Zouari, S., Zywucka, N., and Mori, K.
Subjects: Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Abstract: We report on multiwavelength target-of-opportunity observations of the blazar PKS 0735+178, located 2.2$^\circ$ away from the best-fit position of the IceCube neutrino event IceCube-211208A detected on December 8, 2021. The source was in a high-flux state in the optical, ultraviolet, X-ray, and GeV gamma-ray bands around the time of the neutrino event, exhibiting daily variability in the soft X-ray flux. The X-ray data from Swift-XRT and NuSTAR characterize the transition between the low-energy and high-energy components of the broadband spectral energy distribution (SED), and the gamma-ray data from Fermi -LAT, VERITAS, and H.E.S.S. require a spectral cut-off near 100 GeV. Both X-ray and gamma-ray measurements provide strong constraints on the leptonic and hadronic models. We analytically explore a synchrotron self-Compton model, an external Compton model, and a lepto-hadronic model. Models that are entirely based on internal photon fields face serious difficulties in matching the observed SED. The existence of an external photon field in the source would instead explain the observed gamma-ray spectral cut-off in both leptonic and lepto-hadronic models and allow a proton jet power that marginally agrees with the Eddington limit in the lepto-hadronic model. We show a numerical lepto-hadronic model with external target photons that reproduces the observed SED and is reasonably consistent with the neutrino event despite requiring a high jet power., Comment: 21 pages, 3 figures, accepted by ApJ
Published: 2023

10. Search for Ultraheavy Dark Matter from Observations of Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxies with VERITAS

Author: Acharyya, A., Archer, A., Bangale, P., Bartkoske, J. T., Batista, P., Baumgart, M., Benbow, W., Buckley, J. H., Falcone, A., Feng, Q., Finley, J. P., Foote, G. M., Fortson, L., Furniss, A., Gallagher, G., Hanlon, W. F., Hervet, O., Hoang, J., Holder, J., Humensky, T. B., Jin, W., Kaaret, P., Kertzman, M., Kherlakian, M., Kieda, D., Kleiner, T. K., Korzoun, N., Krennrich, F., Lang, M. J., Lundy, M., Maier, G., McGrath, C. E, Moriarty, P., O'Brien, S., Ong, R. A., Pfrang, K., Pohl, M., Pueschel, E., Quinn, J., Ragan, K., Reynolds, P. T., Roache, E., Rodd, N. L., Ryan, J. L., Sadeh, I., Saha, L., Santander, M., Sembroski, G. H., Shang, R., Splettstoesser, M., Tak, D., Tucci, J. V., Vassiliev, V. V., and Williams, D. A.
Subjects: Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena, Astrophysics - Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics, High Energy Physics - Experiment, High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
Abstract: Dark matter is a key piece of the current cosmological scenario, with weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) a leading dark matter candidate. WIMPs have not been detected in their conventional parameter space (100 GeV $\lesssim M_{\chi} \lesssim$ 100 TeV), a mass range accessible with current Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes. As ultraheavy dark matter (UHDM; $M_{\chi} \gtrsim$ 100 TeV) has been suggested as an under-explored alternative to the WIMP paradigm, we search for an indirect dark matter annihilation signal in a higher mass range (up to 30 PeV) with the VERITAS gamma-ray observatory. With 216 hours of observations of four dwarf spheroidal galaxies, we perform an unbinned likelihood analysis. We find no evidence of a $\gamma$-ray signal from UHDM annihilation above the background fluctuation for any individual dwarf galaxy nor for a joint-fit analysis, and consequently constrain the velocity-weighted annihilation cross section of UHDM for dark matter particle masses between 1 TeV and 30 PeV. We additionally set constraints on the allowed radius of a composite UHDM particle., Comment: 10 pages, 7 figures
Published: 2023
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11. VERITAS and Fermi-LAT constraints on the Gamma-ray Emission from Superluminous Supernovae SN2015bn and SN2017egm

Author: Acharyya, A., Adams, C. B., Bangale, P., Benbow, W., Buckley, J. H., Capasso, M., Dwarkadas, V. V., Errando, M., Falcone, A., Feng, Q., Finley, J. P., Foote, G. M., Fortson, L., Furniss, A., Gallagher, G., Gent, A., Hanlon, W. F, Hervet, O., Holder, J., Humensky, T. B., Jin, W., Kaaret, P., Kertzman, M., Kherlakian, M., Kieda, D., Kleiner, T. K, Kumar, S., Lang, M. J., Lundy, M., Maier, G., McGrath, C. E, Millis, J., Moriarty, P., Mukherjee, R., Nievas-Rosillo, M., O'Brien, S., Ong, R. A., Patel, S. R., Pfrang, K., Pohl, M., Pueschel, E., Quinn, J., Ragan, K., Reynolds, P. T., Ribeiro, D., Roache, E., Ryan, J. L., Sadeh, I., Santander, M., Sembroski, G. H., Shang, R., Splettstoesser, M., Tak, D., Tucci, J. V., Weinstein, A., Williams, D. A., Metzger, B. D., Nicholl, M., and Vurm, I.
Subjects: Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Abstract: Superluminous supernovae (SLSNe) are a rare class of stellar explosions with luminosities ~10-100 times greater than ordinary core-collapse supernovae. One popular model to explain the enhanced optical output of hydrogen-poor (Type I) SLSNe invokes energy injection from a rapidly spinning magnetar. A prediction in this case is that high-energy gamma rays, generated in the wind nebula of the magnetar, could escape through the expanding supernova ejecta at late times (months or more after optical peak). This paper presents a search for gamma-ray emission in the broad energy band from 100 MeV to 30 TeV from two Type I SLSNe, SN2015bn, and SN2017egm, using observations from Fermi-LAT and VERITAS. Although no gamma-ray emission was detected from either source, the derived upper limits approach the putative magnetar's spin-down luminosity. Prospects are explored for detecting very-high-energy (VHE; 100 GeV - 100 TeV) emission from SLSNe-I with existing and planned facilities such as VERITAS and CTA., Comment: 20 pages, 7 figures, 2 tables
Published: 2023
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12. VTSCat: The VERITAS Catalog of Gamma-Ray Observations

Author: Acharyya, A., Adams, C. B., Archer, A., Bangale, P., Bartkoske, J. T., Batista, P., Benbow, W., Buckley, J. H., Brill, A., Capasso, M., Christiansen, J. L., Chromey, A. J., Daniel, M. K., Errando, M., Falcone, A., Farrell, K. A, Feng, Q., Finley, J. P., Foote, G. M, Fortson, L., Furniss, A., Gallagher, G., Gent, A., Giuri, C., Gueta, O., Hanlon, W. F, Hanna, D., Hassan, T., Hervet, O., Hoang, J., Holder, J., Hughes, G., Humensky, T. B., Jin, W., Kaaret, P., Kertzman, M., Kieda, D., Kleiner, T. K., Korzoun, N., Krennrich, F., Kumar, S., Lang, M. J., Lundy, M., Maier, G., McGrath, C. E, Millard, M. J, Mooney, C. L., Moriarty, P., Mukherjee, R., Nieto, D., Nievas-Rosillo, M., O'Brien, S., Ong, R. A., Otte, A. N., Pandel, D., Park, N., Patel, S. R., Patel, S., Pfrang, K., Pichel, A., Pohl, M., Prado, R. R., Pueschel, E., Quinn, J., Ragan, K., Reynolds, P. T., Ribeiro, D., Richards, G. T., Roache, E., Rovero, A. C., Rulten, C., Ryan, J. L., Sadeh, I., Santander, M., Schlenstedt, S., Sembroski, G. H., Shang, R., Splettstoesser, M., Stevenson, B., Tak, D., Vassiliev, V. V., Wakely, S. P., Weinstein, A., Williams, D. A., Williamson, T. J, Angelini, L., Basu-Zych, A., Sabol, E., and Smale, A.
Subjects: Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Abstract: The ground-based gamma-ray observatory VERITAS (Very Energetic Radiation Imaging Telescope Array System) is sensitive to photons of astrophysical origin with energies in the range between $\approx 85$ GeV to $\approx 30$ TeV. The instrument consists of four 12-m diameter imaging Cherenkov telescopes operating at the Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory (FLWO) in southern Arizona. VERITAS started four-telescope operations in 2007 and collects about 1100 hours of good-weather data per year. The VERITAS collaboration has published over 100 journal articles since 2008 reporting on gamma-ray observations of a large variety of objects: Galactic sources like supernova remnants, pulsar wind nebulae, and binary systems; extragalactic sources like star forming galaxies, dwarf-spheroidal galaxies, and highly-variable active galactic nuclei. This note presents VTSCat: the catalog of high-level data products from all VERITAS publications., Comment: Version with corrected author list
Published: 2023
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13. Search for Ultraheavy Dark Matter from Observations of Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxies with VERITAS

Author: Acharyya, A, Archer, A, Bangale, P, Bartkoske, JT, Batista, P, Baumgart, M, Benbow, W, Buckley, JH, Falcone, A, Feng, Q, Finley, JP, Foote, GM, Fortson, L, Furniss, A, Gallagher, G, Hanlon, WF, Hervet, O, Hoang, J, Holder, J, Humensky, TB, Jin, W, Kaaret, P, Kertzman, M, Kherlakian, M, Kieda, D, Kleiner, TK, Korzoun, N, Krennrich, F, Lang, MJ, Lundy, M, Maier, G, McGrath, CE, Moriarty, P, O’Brien, S, Ong, RA, Pfrang, K, Pohl, M, Pueschel, E, Quinn, J, Ragan, K, Reynolds, PT, Roache, E, Rodd, NL, Ryan, JL, Sadeh, I, Saha, L, Santander, M, Sembroski, GH, Shang, R, Splettstoesser, M, Tak, D, Tucci, JV, Vassiliev, VV, and Williams, DA
Subjects: Nuclear and Plasma Physics, Particle and High Energy Physics, Physical Sciences, Astronomical and Space Sciences, Atomic, Molecular, Nuclear, Particle and Plasma Physics, Physical Chemistry (incl. Structural), Astronomy & Astrophysics, Astronomical sciences, Particle and high energy physics, Space sciences
Abstract: Dark matter is a key piece of the current cosmological scenario, with weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) a leading dark matter candidate. WIMPs have not been detected in their conventional parameter space (100 GeV ≲M χ ≲ 100 TeV), a mass range accessible with current Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes. As ultraheavy dark matter (UHDM; M χ ≳ 100 TeV) has been suggested as an underexplored alternative to the WIMP paradigm, we search for an indirect dark matter annihilation signal in a higher mass range (up to 30 PeV) with the VERITAS γ-ray observatory. With 216 hr of observations of four dwarf spheroidal galaxies, we perform an unbinned likelihood analysis. We find no evidence of a γ-ray signal from UHDM annihilation above the background fluctuation for any individual dwarf galaxy nor for a joint-fit analysis, and consequently constrain the velocity-weighted annihilation cross section of UHDM for dark matter particle masses between 1 TeV and 30 PeV. We additionally set constraints on the allowed radius of a composite UHDM particle.
Published: 2023

14. Optical Spectroscopy of Blazars for the Cherenkov Telescope Array -- II

Author: Kasai, E., Goldoni, P., Pita, S., Williams, D. A., Max-Moerbeck, W., Hervet, O., Cotter, G., Backes, M., Boisson, C., González, J. Becerra, de Almeida, U. Barres, D'Ammando, F., Ramazani, V. Fallah, and Lindfors, E.
Subjects: Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Abstract: Active galactic nuclei (AGNs) make up about 35 per cent of the more than 250 sources detected in very-high-energy (VHE) gamma rays to date with Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes. Apart from four nearby radio galaxies and two AGNs of unknown type, all known VHE AGNs are blazars. Knowledge of the cosmological redshift of gamma-ray blazars is key to enabling the study of their intrinsic emission properties, as the interaction between gamma rays and the extragalactic background light (EBL) results in a spectral softening. Therefore, the redshift determination exercise is crucial to indirectly placing tight constraints on the EBL density and to studying blazar population evolution across cosmic time. Due to the powerful relativistic jets in blazars, most of their host galaxies' spectral features are outshined, and dedicated high signal-to-noise spectroscopic observations are required. Deep medium- to high-resolution spectroscopy of 33 gamma-ray blazar optical counterparts was performed with the European Southern Observatory New Technology Telescope, Keck II telescope, Shane 3-meter telescope and the Southern African Large Telescope. From the sample, spectra from 25 objects display spectral features or are featureless and have high signal-to-noise. The other eight objects have low quality featureless spectra. We systematically searched for absorption and emission features and estimated, when possible, the fractional host galaxy flux in the measured total flux. Our measurements yielded 14 firm spectroscopic redshifts, ranging from 0.0838 to 0.8125, one tentative redshift, and two lower limits: one at z > 0.382 and the other at z > 0.629., Comment: 19 pages, 5 figures This article has been accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stac3167) Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society
Published: 2022
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15. Gamma-ray observations of MAXI J1820+070 during the 2018 outburst

Author: Abe, H., Abe, S., Acciari, V. A., Aniello, T., Ansoldi, S., Antonelli, L. A., Engels, A. Arbet, Arcaro, C., Artero, M., Asano, K., Baack, D., Babić, A., Baquero, A., de Almeida, U. Barres, Barrio, J. A., Batković, I., Baxter, J., González, J. Becerra, Bednarek, W., Bernardini, E., Bernardos, M., Berti, A., Besenrieder, J., Bhattacharyya, W., Bigongiari, C., Biland, A., Blanch, O., Bonnoli, G., Bošnjak, Ž., Burelli, I., Busetto, G., Carosi, R., Carretero-Castrillo, M., Ceribella, G., Chai, Y., Chilingarian, A., Cikota, S., Colombo, E., Contreras, J. L., Cortina, J., Covino, S., D'Amico, G., D'Elia, V., Da Vela, P., Dazzi, F., De Angelis, A., De Lotto, B., Del Popolo, A., Delfino, M., Delgado, J., Mendez, C. Delgado, Depaoli, D., Di Pierro, F., Di Venere, L., Prester, D. Dominis, Donini, A., Dorner, D., Doro, M., Elsaesser, D., Emery, G., Ramazani, V. Fallah, Fariña, L., Fattorini, A., Font, L., Fruck, C., Fukami, S., Fukazawa, Y., López, R. J. García, Garczarczyk, M., Gasparyan, S., Gaug, M., Paiva, J. G. Giesbrecht, Giglietto, N., Giordano, F., Gliwny, P., Godinović, N., Grau, R., Green, D., Green, J. G., Hadasch, D., Hahn, A., Hassan, T., Heckmann, L., Herrera, J., Hoang, J., Hrupec, D., Hütten, M., Imazawa, R., Inada, T., Iotov, R., Ishio, K., Martínez, I. Jiménez, Jormanainen, J., Kerszberg, D., Kobayashi, Y., Kubo, H., Kushida, J., Lamastra, A., Lelas, D., Leone, F., Lindfors, E., Linhoff, L., Lombardi, S., Longo, F., López-Coto, R., López-Moya, M., López-Oramas, A., Loporchio, S., Lorini, A., Lyard, E., Fraga, B. Machado de Oliveira, Majumdar, P., Makariev, M., Maneva, G., Mang, N., Manganaro, M., Mangano, S., Mannheim, K., Mariotti, M., Martínez, M., Aguilar, A. Mas, Mazin, D., Menchiari, S., Mender, S., Mićanović, S., Miceli, D., Miener, T., Miranda, J. M., Mirzoyan, R., Molina, E., Mondal, H. A., Moralejo, A., Morcuende, D., Moreno, V., Nakamori, T., Nanci, C., Nava, L., Neustroev, V., Rosillo, M. Nievas, Nigro, C., Nilsson, K., Nishijima, K., Ekoume, T. Njoh, Noda, K., Nozaki, S., Ohtani, Y., Oka, T., Okumura, A., Otero-Santos, J., Paiano, S., Palatiello, M., Paneque, D., Paoletti, R., Paredes, J. M., Pavletić, L., Persic, M., Pihet, M., Pirola, G., Podobnik, F., Moroni, P. G. Prada, Prandini, E., Principe, G., Priyadarshi, C., Puljak, I., Rhode, W., Ribó, M., Rico, J., Righi, C., Rugliancich, A., Sahakyan, N., Saito, T., Sakurai, S., Satalecka, K., Saturni, F. G., Schleicher, B., Schmidt, K., Schmuckermaier, F., Schubert, J. L., Schweizer, T., Sitarek, J., Sliusar, V., Sobczynska, D., Spolon, A., Stamerra, A., Strišković, J., Strom, D., Strzys, M., Suda, Y., Surić, T., Tajima, H., Takahashi, M., Takeishi, R., Tavecchio, F., Temnikov, P., Terauchi, K., Terzić, T., Teshima, M., Tosti, L., Truzzi, S., Tutone, A., Ubach, S., van Scherpenberg, J., Acosta, M. Vazquez, Ventura, S., Verguilov, V., Viale, I., Vigorito, C. F., Vitale, V., Vovk, I., Walter, R., Will, M., Wunderlich, C., Yamamoto, T., Zarić, D., Abdalla, H., Aharonian, F., Benkhali, F. Ait, Angüner, E. O., Ashkar, H., Backes, M., Baghmanyan, V., Martins, V. Barbosa, Batzofin, R., Becherini, Y., Berge, D., Bernlöhr, K., Böttcher, M., Boisson, C., Bolmont, J., de Lavergne, M. de Bony, Bradascio, F., Breuhaus, M., Brose, R., Brun, F., Bulik, T., Bylund, T., Cangemi, F., Caroff, S., Casanova, S., Cerruti, M., Chand, T., Chandra, S., Chen, A., Chibueze, O. U., Cotter, G., Cristofari, P., Mbarubucyeye, J. Damascene, Devin, J., Djannati-Ataï, A., Dmytriiev, A., Egberts, K., Ernenwein, J. -P., Fiasson, A., de Clairfontaine, G. Fichet, Fontaine, G., Füßling, M., Funk, S., Gabici, S., Ghafourizadeh, S., Giavitto, G., Glawion, D., Glicenstein, J. F., Goswami, P., Grolleron, G., Hinton, J. A., Hörbe, M., Hoischen, C., Holch, T. L., Holler, M., Horns, D., Huang, Zhiqiu, Jamrozy, M., Jankowsky, F., Joshi, V., Jung-Richardt, I., Kasai, E., Katarzyński, K., Katz, U., Khélifi, B., Kluźniak, W., Komin, Nu., Kosack, K., Kostunin, D., Lang, R. G., Stum, S. Le, Lemière, A., Lemoine-Goumard, M., Lenain, J. -P., Leuschner, F., Lohse, T., Luashvili, A., Lypova, I., Mackey, J., Majumdar, J., Malyshev, D., Marandon, V., Marchegiani, P., Martí-Devesa, G., Marx, R., Maurin, G., Meyer, M., Mitchell, A., Moderski, R., Mohrmann, L., Montanari, A., Moulin, E., Muller, J., Murach, T., Nakashima, K., de Naurois, M., Nayerhoda, A., Niemiec, J., Noel, A. Priyana, O'Brien, P., Ohm, S., Olivera-Nieto, L., Wilhelmi, E. de Ona, Ostrowski, M., Panny, S., Panter, M., Parsons, R. D., Poireau, V., Prokhorov, D. A., Prokoph, H., Pühlhofer, G., Punch, M., Quirrenbach, A., Reichherzer, P., Reimer, A., Reimer, O., Renaud, M., Rieger, F., Rowell, G., Rudak, B., Ricarte, H. Rueda, Ruiz-Velasco, E., Sahakian, V., Salzmann, H., Santangelo, A., Sasaki, M., Schäfer, J., Schüssler, F., Schutte, H. M., Schwanke, U., Shapopi, J. N. S., Sol, H., Specovius, A., Spencer, S., Stawarz, Ł., Steenkamp, R., Steinmassl, S., Steppa, C., Sushch, I., Suzuki, H., Takahashi, T., Tanaka, T., Thorpe-Morgan, C., Tluczykont, M., Tomankova, L., Tsuji, N., Uchiyama, Y., van Eldik, C., van Soelen, B., Vecchi, M., Veh, J., Venter, C., Vink, J., Wagner, S. J., White, R., Wierzcholska, A., Wong, Yu Wun, Yusafzai, A., Zacharias, M., Zanin, R., Zargaryan, D., Zdziarski, A. A., Zech, A., Zhu, S. J., Zouari, S., Żywucka, N., Acharyya, A., Adams, C. B., Batista, P., Benbow, W., Capasso, M., Christiansen, J. L., Chromey, A. J., Errando, M., Falcone, A., Feng, Q., Finley, J. P., Foote, G. M, Fortson, L., Furniss, A., Gent, A., Hanlon, W. F, Hervet, O., Holder, J., Hona, B., Humensky, T. B., Jin, W., Kaaret, P., Kertzman, M., Kherlakian, M., Kleiner, T. K., Kumar, S., Lang, M. J., Lundy, M., Maier, G., McGrath, C. E., Millis, J., Moriarty, P., Mukherjee, R., O'Brien, S., Ong, R. A., Park, N., Patel, S. R., Pfrang, K., Pohl, M., Pueschel, E., Quinn, J., Ragan, K., Reynolds, P. T., Ribeiro, D., Roache, E., Ryan, J. L., Sadeh, I., Saha, L., Santander, M., Sembroski, G. H., Shang, R., Splettstoesser, M., Tak, D., Tucci, J. V., Weinstein, A., Williams, D. A., Williamson, T. J., Bosch-Ramon, V., Celma, C., Linares, M., Russell, D. M., and Sala, G.
Subjects: Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Abstract: MAXI J1820+070 is a low-mass X-ray binary with a black hole as a compact object. This binary underwent an exceptionally bright X-ray outburst from March to October 2018, showing evidence of a non-thermal particle population through its radio emission during this whole period. The combined results of 59.5 hours of observations of the MAXI J1820+070 outburst with the H.E.S.S., MAGIC and VERITAS experiments at energies above 200 GeV are presented, together with Fermi-LAT data between 0.1 and 500 GeV, and multiwavelength observations from radio to X-rays. Gamma-ray emission is not detected from MAXI J1820+070, but the obtained upper limits and the multiwavelength data allow us to put meaningful constraints on the source properties under reasonable assumptions regarding the non-thermal particle population and the jet synchrotron spectrum. In particular, it is possible to show that, if a high-energy gamma-ray emitting region is present during the hard state of the source, its predicted flux should be at most a factor of 20 below the obtained Fermi-LAT upper limits, and closer to them for magnetic fields significantly below equipartition. During the state transitions, under the plausible assumption that electrons are accelerated up to ~ 500 GeV, the multiwavelength data and the gamma-ray upper limits lead consistently to the conclusion that a potential high-energy and very-high-energy gamma-ray emitting region should be located at a distance from the black hole ranging between 10^11 and 10^13 cm. Similar outbursts from low-mass X-ray binaries might be detectable in the near future with upcoming instruments such as CTA., Comment: 15 pages, 5 figures. Accepted for publication in MNRAS
Published: 2022
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16. New jet feature in the parsec-scale jet of the blazar OJ287 connected to the 2017 teraelectronvolt flaring activity

Author: Lico, R., Casadio, C., Jorstad, S. G., Gomez, J. L., Marscher, A. P., Traianou, E., Kim, J. Y., Zhao, G. Y., Fuentes, A., Cho, I., Krichbaum, T. P., Hervet, O., O'Brien, S., Boccardi, B., Myserlis, I., Agudo, I., Alberdi, A., Weaver, Z. R., and Zensus, J. A.
Subjects: Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena, Astrophysics - Astrophysics of Galaxies
Abstract: In February 2017 the blazar OJ287, one of the best super-massive binary-black-hole-system candidates, was detected for the first time at very high energies (VHEs; E>100GeV) with the ground-based gamma-ray observatory VERITAS. Very high energy gamma rays are thought to be produced in the near vicinity of the central engine in active galactic nuclei. For this reason, and with the main goal of providing useful information for the characterization of the physical mechanisms connected with the observed teraelectronvolt flaring event, we investigate the parsec-scale source properties by means of high-resolution very long baseline interferometry observations. We use 86 GHz Global Millimeter-VLBI Array (GMVA) observations from 2015 to 2017 and combine them with additional multiwavelength radio observations at different frequencies from other monitoring programs. We investigate the source structure by modeling the brightness distribution with two-dimensional Gaussian components in the visibility plane. In the GMVA epoch following the source VHE activity, we find a new jet feature (labeled K) at about 0.2 mas from the core region and located in between two quasi-stationary components (labeled S1 and S2). Multiple periods of enhanced activity are detected at different radio frequencies before and during the VHE flaring state. Based on the findings of this work, we identify as a possible trigger for the VHE flaring emission during the early months of 2017 the passage of a new jet feature through a recollimation shock (represented by the model-fit component S1) in a region of the jet located at a de-projected distance of about 10 pc from the radio core., Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure, 1 table
Published: 2022
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17. The throughput calibration of the VERITAS telescopes

Author: Adams, C. B., Benbow, W., Brill, A., Buckley, J. H., Christiansen, J. L., Falcone, A., Feng, Q., Finley, J. P., Foote, G. M, Fortson, L., Furniss, A., Giuri, C., Hanna, D., Hassan, T., Hervet, O., Holder, J., Hona, B., Humensky, T. B., Jin, W., Kaaret, P., Kleiner, T. K, Kumar, S., Lang, M. J., Lundy, M., Maier, G., Moriarty, P., Mukherjee, R., Rosillo, M. Nievas, O'Brien, S., Park, N., Patel, S., Pfrang, K., Pohl, M., Prado, R. R., Pueschel, E., Quinn, J., Ragan, K., Reynolds, P. T., Ribeiro, D., Roache, E., Ryan, J. L., Santander, M., Weinstein, A., Williams, D. A., and Williamson, T. J
Subjects: Astrophysics - Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics, Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Abstract: Context. The response of imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes to incident {\gamma}-ray-initiated showers in the atmosphere changes as the telescopes age due to exposure to light and weather. These aging processes affect the reconstructed energies of the events and {\gamma}-ray fluxes. Aims. This work discusses the implementation of signal calibration methods for the Very Energetic Radiation Imaging Telescope Array System (VERITAS) to account for changes in the optical throughput and detector performance over time. Methods. The total throughput of a Cherenkov telescope is the product of camera-dependent factors, such as the photomultiplier tube gains and their quantum efficiencies, and the mirror reflectivity and Winston cone response to incoming radiation. This document summarizes different methods to determine how the camera gains and mirror reflectivity have evolved over time and how we can calibrate this changing throughput in reconstruction pipelines for imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes. The implementation is validated against seven years of observations with the VERITAS telescopes of the Crab Nebula, which is a reference object in very-high-energy astronomy. Results. Regular optical throughput monitoring and the corresponding signal calibrations are found to be critical for the reconstruction of extensive air shower images. The proposed implementation is applied as a correction to the signals of the photomultiplier tubes in the telescope simulation to produce fine-tuned instrument response functions. This method is shown to be effective for calibrating the acquired {\gamma}-ray data and for recovering the correct energy of the events and photon fluxes. At the same time, it keeps the computational effort of generating Monte Carlo simulations for instrument response functions affordably low., Comment: 19 pages, 20 figures, 2 tables Received: 22 September 2021 / Accepted: 03 November 2021
Published: 2021
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18. Variability and Spectral Characteristics of Three Flaring Gamma-ray Quasars Observed by VERITAS and Fermi-LAT

Author: Adams, C. B., Batshoun, J., Benbow, W., Brill, A., Buckley, J. H., Capasso, M., Cavins, B., Christiansen, J. L., Coppi, P., Errando, M., Farrell, K. A, Feng, Q., Finley, J. P., Foote, G. M., Fortson, L., Furniss, A., Gent, A., Giuri, C., Hanna, D., Hassan, T., Hervet, O., Holder, J., Houck, M., Humensky, T. B., Jin, W., Kaaret, P., Kertzman, M., Kieda, D., Krennrich, F., Kumar, S., Lundy, M., Maier, G., McGrath, C. E, Moriarty, P., Mukherjee, R., Nieto, D., Nievas-Rosillo, M., O'Brien, S., Ong, R. A., Oppenheimer, A., Otte, A. N., Patel, S., Pfrang, K., Pohl, M., Prado, R. R., Pueschel, E., Quinn, J., Ragan, K., Reynolds, P. T., Rhatigan, A., Ribeiro, D., Roache, E., Ryan, J. L., Santander, M., Sembroski, G. H., Williams, D. A., Williamson, T. J, Valverde, J., Horan, D., Buson, S., Cheung, C. C., Ciprini, S., Gasparrini, D., Ojha, R., van Zyl, P., and Sironi, L.
Subjects: Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Abstract: Flat spectrum radio quasars (FSRQs) are the most luminous blazars at GeV energies, but only rarely emit detectable fluxes of TeV gamma rays, typically during bright GeV flares. We explore the gamma-ray variability and spectral characteristics of three FSRQs that have been observed at GeV and TeV energies by Fermi-LAT and VERITAS, making use of almost 100 hours of VERITAS observations spread over 10 years: 3C 279, PKS 1222+216, and Ton 599. We explain the GeV flux distributions of the sources in terms of a model derived from a stochastic differential equation describing fluctuations in the magnetic field in the accretion disk, and estimate the timescales of magnetic flux accumulation and stochastic instabilities in their accretion disks. We identify distinct flares using a procedure based on Bayesian blocks and analyze their daily and sub-daily variability and gamma-ray energy spectra. Using observations from VERITAS as well as Fermi, Swift, and the Steward Observatory, we model the broadband spectral energy distributions of PKS 1222+216 and Ton 599 during VHE-detected flares in 2014 and 2017, respectively, strongly constraining the jet Doppler factors and gamma-ray emission region locations during these events. Finally, we place theoretical constraints on the potential production of PeV-scale neutrinos during these VHE flares., Comment: 34 pages, 13 figures. Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal
Published: 2021
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19. Prototype Schwarzschild-Couder Telescope for the Cherenkov Telescope Array: Commissioning the Optical System

Author: Adams, C. B., Ambrosi, G., Ambrosio, M., Aramo, C., Batista, P. I., Benbow, W., Bertucci, B., Bissaldi, E., Bitossi, M., Boiano, A., Bonavolontà, C., Bose, R., Brill, A., Buckley, J. H., Cameron, R. A., Canestrari, R., Capasso, M., Caprai, M., Covault, C. E., Depaoli, D., Di Venere, L., Errando, M., Fegan, S., Feng, Q., Fiandrini, E., Furniss, A., Gent, A., Giglietto, N., Giordano, F., Giro, E., Halliday, R., Hervet, O., Humensky, T. B., Incardona, S., Ionica, M., Jin, W., Kieda, D., Licciulli, F., Loporchio, S., Marsella, G., Masone, V., Meagher, K., Meures, T., Mode, B. A. W., Mognet, S. A. I., Mukherjee, R., Nieto, D., Okumura, A., Otte, N., Pantaleo, F. R., Paoletti, R., Pareschi, G., Di Pierro, F., Pueschel, E., Ribeiro, D., Riitano, L., Roache, E., Rousselle, J., Rugliancich, A., Santander, M., Shang, R., Stiaccini, L., Taylor, L. P., Tosti, L., Tovmassian, G., Tripodo, G., Vagelli, V., Valentino, M., Vandenbroucke, J., Vassiliev, V. V., Williams, D. A., and Yu, P.
Subjects: Astrophysics - Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics, Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena, Physics - Optics
Abstract: A prototype Schwarzschild-Couder Telescope (pSCT) has been constructed at the Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory as a candidate for the medium-sized telescopes of the Cherenkov Telescope Array Observatory (CTAO). CTAO is currently entering early construction phase of the project and once completed it will vastly improve very high energy gamma-ray detection component in multi-wavelength and multi-messenger observations due to significantly improved sensitivity, angular resolution and field of view comparing to the current generation of the ground-based gamma-ray observatories H.E.S.S., MAGIC and VERITAS. The pSCT uses a dual aspheric mirror design with a $9.7$ m primary mirror and $5.4$ m secondary mirror, both of which are segmented. The Schwarzschild-Couder (SC) optical system (OS) selected for the prototype telescope achieves wide field of view of $8$ degrees and simultaneously reduces the focal plane plate scale allowing an unprecedented compact ($0.78$m diameter) implementation of the high-resolution camera ($6$mm/ $0.067$deg per imaging pixel with $11,328$ pixels) based on the silicon photo-multipliers (SiPMs). The OS of the telescope is designed to eliminate spherical and comatic aberrations and minimize astigmatism to radically improve off-axis imaging and consequently angular resolution across all the field of view with respect to the conventional single-mirror telescopes. Fast and high imaging resolution OS of the pSCT comes with the challenging submillimeter-precision custom alignment system, which was successfully demonstrated with an on-axis point spread function (PSF) of $2.9$ arcmin prior to the first-light detection of the Crab Nebula in 2020. Ongoing and future commissioning activities are reported.
Published: 2021

20. Multi-Wavelength Observation Campaign of the TeV Gamma-Ray Binary HESS J0632+057 with NuSTAR, VERITAS, MDM, and Swift

Author: Tokayer, Y. M., An, H., Halpern, J. P., Kim, J., Mori, K., Hailey, C. J., Adams, C. B., Benbow, W., Brill, A., Buckley, J. H., Capasso, M., Errando, M., Falcone, A., Farrell, K. A, Foote, G. M, Fortson, L., Furniss, A., Gent, A., Giuri, C., Hanna, D., Hassan, T., Hervet, O., Holder, J., Hona, B., Humensky, T. B., Jin, W., Kaaret, P., Kertzman, M., Kieda, D., Lang, M. J., Maier, G., McGrath, C. E, Moriarty, P., Mukherjee, R., Nievas-Rosillo, M., O'Brien, S., Ong, R. A., Otte, A. N., Park, N., Patel, S., Pfrang, K., Pohl, M., Prado, R. R., Pueschel, E., Quinn, J., Ragan, K., Reynolds, P. T., Ribeiro, D., Roache, E., Ryan, J. L., Santander, M., Schlenstedt, S., Sembroski, G. H., Weinstein, A., Williams, D. A., and Williamson, T. J
Subjects: Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Abstract: HESS J0632+057 belongs to a rare subclass of binary systems which emits gamma-rays above 100 GeV. It stands out for its distinctive high-energy light curve, which features a sharp ``primary'' peak and broader ``secondary'' peak. We present the results of contemporaneous observations by NuSTAR and VERITAS during the secondary peak between Dec. 2019 and Feb. 2020, when the orbital phase ($\phi$) is between 0.55 and 0.75. NuSTAR detected X-ray spectral evolution, while VERITAS detected TeV emission. We fit a leptonic wind-collision model to the multi-wavelength spectra data obtained over the four NuSTAR and VERITAS observations, constraining the pulsar spin-down luminosity and the magnetization parameter at the shock. Despite long-term monitoring of the source from Oct. 2019 to Mar. 2020, the MDM observatory did not detect significant variation in H$\alpha$ and H$\beta$ line equivalent widths, an expected signature of Be-disk interaction with the pulsar. Furthermore, fitting folded Swift-XRT light curve data with an intra-binary shock model constrained the orbital parameters, suggesting two orbital phases (at $\phi_D = 0.13$ and 0.37) where the pulsar crosses the Be-disk, as well as phases for the periastron ($\phi_0 = 0.30$) and inferior conjunction ($\phi_{\text{IFC}} = 0.75$). The broad-band X-ray spectra with Swift-XRT and NuSTAR allowed us to measure a higher neutral hydrogen column density at one of the predicted disk-passing phases., Comment: 21 pages, 9 figures, accepted to ApJ
Published: 2021
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21. Observation of the gamma-ray binary HESS J0632+057 with the H.E.S.S., MAGIC, and VERITAS telescopes

Author: Adams, C. B., Benbow, W., Brill, A., Buckley, J. H., Capasso, M., Chromey, A. J., Errando, M., Falcone, A., Farrell, K. A., Feng, Q., Finley, J P., Foote, G., Fortson, L., Furniss, A., Gent, A., Gillanders, G. H., Giuri, C., Gueta, O., Hanna, D., Hassan, T., Hervet, O., Holder, J., Hona, B., Humensky, T. B., Jin, W., Kaaret, P., Kertzman, M., Kieda, D., Kleiner, T. K., Krennrich, F., Kumar, S., Lang, M. J., Lundy, M., Maier, G., McGrath, C. E., Moriarty, P., Mukherjee, R., Nieto, D., Nievas-Rosillo, M., O'Brien, S., Ong, R. A., Otte, A. N., Park, N., Patel, S., Pfrang, K., Pichel, A., Pohl, M., Prado, R. R., Quinn, J., Ragan, K., Reynolds, P. T., Ribeiro, D., Roache, E., Rovero, A. C., Ryan, J. L., Santander, M., Schlenstedt, S., Sembroski, G. H., Shang, R., Tak, D., Vassiliev, V. V., Weinstein, A., Williams, D. A., Williamson, T. J., Acciari, V. A., Ansoldi, S., Antonelli, L. A., Engels, A. Arbet, Artero, M., Asano, K., Baack, D., Babić, A., Baquero, A., de Almeida, U. Barres, Barrio, J. A., Batković, I., González, J. Becerra, Bednarek, W., Bellizzi, L., Bernardini, E., Bernardos, M., Berti, A., Besenrieder, J., Bhattacharyya, W., Bigongiari, C., Biland, A., Blanch, O., Bökenkamp, H., Bonnol, G., Bošnjak, Ž., Busetto, G., Carosi, R., Ceribella, G., Cerruti, M., Chai, Y., Chilingarian, A., Cikota, S., Colak, S. M., Colombo, E., Contreras, J. L., Cortina, J., Covino, S., D'Amico, G., D'Elia, V., Da Vela, P., Dazzi, F., De Angelis, A., De Lotto, B., Delfino, M., Delgado, J., Mendez, C. Delgado, Depaoli, D., Di Pierro, F., Di Venere, L., Espiñeira, E. Do Souto, Prester, D. Dominis, Donini, A., Dorner, D., Doro, M., Elsaesser, D., Ramazani, V. Fallah, Fattorini, A., Fonseca, M. V., Font, L., Fruck, C., Fukami, S., Fukazawa, Y., López, R. J. García, Garczarczyk, M., Gasparyan, S., Gaug, M., Giglietto, N., Giordano, F., Gliwny, P., Godinović, N., Green, J. G., Green, D., Hadasch, D., Hahn, A., Heckmann, L., Herrera, J., Hoang, J., Hrupec, D., Hütten, M., Inada, T., Ishio, K., Iwamura, Y., Martínez, I. Jiménez, Jormanainen, J., Jouvin, L., Karjalainen, M., Kerszberg, D., Kobayashi, Y., Kubo, H., Kushida, J., Lamastra, A., Lelas, D., Leone, F., Lindfors, E., Linhoff, L., Lombardi, S., Longo, F., López-Coto, R., López-Moya, M., López-Oramas, A., Loporchio, S., Fraga, B. Machado de Oliveira, Maggio, C., Majumdar, P., Makariev, M., Mallamaci, M., Maneva, G., Manganaro, M., Mannheim, K., Maraschi, L., Mariotti, M., Martínez, M., Mazin, D., Menchiari, S., Mender, S., Mićanović, S., Miceli, D., Miener, T., Miranda, J. M., Mirzoyan, R., Molina, E., Moralejo, A., Morcuende, D., Moreno, V., Moretti, E., Nakamori, T., Nava, L., Neustroev, V., Nigro, C., Nilsson, K., Nishijima, K., Nozaki, K. Noda S., Ohtani, Y., Oka, T., Otero-Santos, J., Paiano, S., Palatiello, M., Paneque, D., Paoletti, R., Paredes, J. M., Pavletić, L., Peñil, P., Persic, M., Pihet, M., Moroni, P. G. Prada, Prandini, E., Priyadarshi, C., Puljak, I., Rhode, W., Ribó, M., Rico, J., Righi, C., Rugliancich, A., Saha, L., Sahakyan, N., Saito, T., Sakurai, S., Satalecka, K., Saturni, F. G., Schleicher, B., Schmidt, K., Schweizer, T., Sitarek, J., Šnidarić, I., Spolon, D. Sobczynska A., Stamerra, A., Strišković, J., Strom, D., Strzys, M., Suda, Y., Surić, T., Takahashi, M., Takeishi, R., Tavecchio, F., Temnikov, P., Terzić, T., Teshima, M., Tosti, L., Truzzi, S., Tutone, A., Ubach, S., van Scherpenberg, J., Vanzo, G., Acosta, M. Vazquez, Ventura, S., Verguilov, V., Vigorito, C. F., Vitale, V., Vovk, I., Will, M., Wunderlich, C., Yamamoto, T., Zarić, D., Abdalla, H., Aharonian, F., Ait-Benkhali, F., Anguener, O., Arcaro, C., Ashkar, H., Backes, M., Martins, V. Barbosa, Barnard, M., Batzofin, R., Becherini, Y., Berge, D., Bernloehr, K., Bi, B., Boettcher, M., Boisson, C., Bolmont, J., de Bony, M., Breuhaus, M., Brose, R., Brun, F., Bulik, T., Caroff, S., Casanova, S., Chand, T., Chen, A., Cotter, G., Mbarubucyeye, J. Damascene, Devin, J., Djannati-Atai, A., Egberts, K., Ernenwein, J., Fegan, S., Fiasson, A., de Clairfontaine, G. Fichet, Fontaine, G., Fuessling, M., Funk, S., Gabici, S., Giavitto, G., Glawion, D., Glicenstein, J., Grondin, M., Hinton, J., Hofmann, W., Holch, T., Holler, M., Horns, D., Huang, Z., Jamrozy, M., Jankowsky, F., Joshi, V., Jung-Richardt, I., Kasai, E., Katarzynski, K., Khelifi, B., Komin, N., Kosack, K., Kostunin, D., Stum, S. Le, Lemiere, A., Lenain, J., Leuschner, F., Levy, C., Lohse, T., Luashvili, A., Lypova, I., Mackey, J., Majumdar, J., Malyshev, D., Marandon, V., Marchegiani, P., Marcowith, A., Marti'i-Devesa, G., Marx, R., Maurin, G., Meintjes, P., Mitchell, A., Moderski, R., Mohrmann, L., Montanari, A., Moulin, E., Muller, J., Murach, T., de Naurois, M., Nayerhoda, A., Niemiec, J., Noel, A., O'Brien, P., Ohm, S., Olivera-Nieto, L., de Ona-Wilhelmi, E., Ostrowski, M., Panny, S., Panter, M., Parsons, D., Peron, G., Poireau, V., Prokhorov, D., Prokoph, H., Puehlhofer, G., Punch, M., Quirrenbach, A., Reichherzer, P., Reimer, A., Reimer, O., Renaud, M., Rieger, F., Romoli, C., Rowell, G., Rudak, B., Ricarte, H. Rueda, Velasco, E. Ruiz, Sahakian, V., Sailer, S., Salzmann, H., Sanchez, D., Santangelo, A., Sasaki, M., Schuessler, F., Schutte, H., Schwanke, U., Senniappan, M., Shapopi, J., Simoni, R., Sol, H., Specovius, A., Spencer, S., Steenkamp, R., Steinmassl, S., Sun, L., Takahashi, T., Tanaka, T., Terrier, R., Tsuji, N., Uchiyama, Y., van Eldik, C., van Soelen, B., Veh, J., Venter, C., Vink, J., Wagner, S., White, R., Wierzcholska, A., Wong, Y. W., Zacharias, M., Zargaryan, D., Zdziarski, A., Zech, A., Zhu, S., Zouari, S., Zywucka, N., Moritani, Y., and Torres, D. F.
Subjects: Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Abstract: The results of gamma-ray observations of the binary system HESS J0632+057 collected during 450 hours over 15 years, between 2004 and 2019, are presented. Data taken with the atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes H.E.S.S., MAGIC, and VERITAS at energies above 350 GeV were used together with observations at X-ray energies obtained with Swift-XRT, Chandra, XMM-Newton, NuSTAR, and Suzaku. Some of these observations were accompanied by measurements of the H{\alpha} emission line. A significant detection of the modulation of the VHE gamma-ray fluxes with a period of 316.7+-4.4 days is reported, consistent with the period of 317.3+-0.7 days obtained with a refined analysis of X-ray data. The analysis of data of four orbital cycles with dense observational coverage reveals short timescale variability, with flux-decay timescales of less than 20 days at very high energies. Flux variations observed over the time scale of several years indicate orbit-to-orbit variability. The analysis confirms the previously reported correlation of X-ray and gamma-ray emission from the system at very high significance, but can not find any correlation of optical H{\alpha} parameters with X-ray or gamma-ray energy fluxes in simultaneous observations. The key finding is that the emission of HESS J0632+057 in the X-ray and gamma-ray energy bands is highly variable on different time scales. The ratio of gamma-ray to X-ray flux shows the equality or even dominance of the gamma-ray energy range. This wealth of new data is interpreted taking into account the insufficient knowledge of the ephemeris of the system, and discussed in the context of results reported on other gamma-ray binary systems., Comment: Accepted for publication by The Astrophysical Journal
Published: 2021
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22. Detection of the Crab Nebula by the prototype Schwarzschild-Couder Telescope

Author: Adams, C. B., Ambrosi, G., Ambrosio, M., Aramo, C., Batista, P. I., Benbow, W., Bertucci, B., Bissaldi, E., Bitossi, M., Boiano, A., Bonavolontà, C., Bose, R., Brill, A., Brown, A. M., Buckley, J. H., Cameron, R. A., Canestrari, R., Capasso, M., Caprai, M., Covault, C. E., Depaoli, D., Di Venere, L., Errando, M., Fegan, S., Feng, Q., Fiandrini, E., Furniss, A., Gent, A., Giglietto, N., Giordano, F., Giro, E., Halliday, R., Hervet, O., Holder, J., Humensky, T. B., Incardona, S., Ionica, M., Jin, W., Kieda, D., Licciulli, F., Loporchio, S., Marsella, G., Masone, V., Meagher, K., Meures, T., Mode, B. A. W., Mognet, S. A. I., Mukherjee, R., Okumura, A., Otte, N., Pantaleo, F. R., Paoletti, R., Pareschi, G., Di Pierro, F., Pueschel, E., Ribeiro, D., Riitano, L., Roache, E., Rousselle, J., Rugliancich, A., Santander, M., Shang, R., Stiaccini, L., Tajima, H., Taylor, L. P., Tosti, L., Tovmassian, G., Tripodo, G., Vagelli, V., Valentino, M., Vandenbroucke, J., Vassiliev, V. V., Williams, D. A., and Zink, A.
Subjects: Astrophysics - Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics, Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Abstract: The Schwarzschild-Couder Telescope (SCT) is a medium-sized telescope technology proposed for the Cherenkov Telescope Array. It uses a novel dual-mirror optical design that removes comatic aberrations across its entire field of view. The SCT camera employs high-resolution silicon photomultiplier (SiPM) sensors with a pixel size of 4 arcminutes. A prototype SCT (pSCT) has been constructed at the Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory in Arizona, USA. An observing campaign in 2020, with a partial camera of 1600 pixels (2.7 degrees by 2.7 degrees field of view) resulted in detection of the Crab Nebula at 8.6 sigma statistical significance. Work on the pSCT camera and optical system is ongoing to improve performance and prepare for an upcoming camera upgrade. The pSCT camera upgrade will replace the current camera modules with improved SiPMs and readout electronics and will expand the camera to its full design field of view of 8 degrees in diameter (11,328 pixels). The fully upgraded pSCT will enable next-generation very-high-energy gamma-ray astrophysics through excellent background rejection and angular resolution. In this presentation we describe first results from the successful operation of the pSCT and future plans., Comment: 9 pages, 3 figures, 2 tables, contribution to ICRC 2021, similar to 10.1016/j.astropartphys.2021.102562 (arXiv:2012.08448)
Published: 2021
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23. Design and performance of the prototype Schwarzschild-Couder Telescope camera

Author: Adams, C. B., Ambrosi, G., Ambrosio, M., Aramo, C., Batista, P. I., Benbow, W., Bertucci, B., Bissaldi, E., Bitossi, M., Boiano, A., Bonavolonta, C., Bose, R., Brill, A., Brown, A. M., Buckley, J. H., Cameron, R. A., Capasso, M., Caprai, M., Covault, C. E., Depaoli, D., Di Venere, L., Errando, M., Fegan, S., Feng, Q., Fiandrini, E., Furniss, A., Gent, A., Giglietto, N., Giordano, F., Halliday, R., Hervet, O., Humensky, T. B., Incardona, S., Ionica, M., Jin, W., Kieda, D., Licciulli, F., Loporchio, S., Marsella, G., Masone, V., Meagher, K., Meures, T., Mode, B. A. W., Mognet, S. A. I., Mukherjee, R., Okumura, A., Otte, N., Pantaleo, F. R., Paoletti, R., Pareschi, G., Di Pierro, F., Pueschel, E., Ribeiro, D., Riitano, L., Roache, E., Ross, D., Rousselle, J., Rugliancich, A., Santander, M., Shang, R., Stiaccini, L., Tajima, H., Taylor, L. P., Tosti, L., Tovmassian, G., Tripodo, G., Vagelli, V., Valentino, M., Vandenbroucke, J., Vassiliev, V. V., Watson, J. J., White, R., Williams, D. A., and Zink, A.
Subjects: Astrophysics - Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
Abstract: The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) is the next-generation ground-based observatory for very-high-energy gamma-ray astronomy. An innovative 9.7 m aperture, dual-mirror Schwarzschild-Couder Telescope (SCT) design is a candidate design for CTA Medium-Sized Telescopes. A prototype SCT (pSCT) has been constructed at the Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory in Arizona, USA. Its camera is currently partially instrumented with 1600 pixels covering a field of view of 2.7 degrees square. The small plate scale of the optical system allows densely packed silicon photomultipliers to be used, which combined with high-density trigger and waveform readout electronics enable the high-resolution camera. The camera's electronics are capable of imaging air shower development at a rate of one billion samples per second. We describe the commissioning and performance of the pSCT camera, including trigger and waveform readout performance, calibration, and absolute GPS time stamping. We also present the upgrade to the camera, which is currently underway. The upgrade will fully populate the focal plane, increasing the field of view to 8 degree diameter, and lower the front-end electronics noise, enabling a lower trigger threshold and improved reconstruction and background rejection., Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures, Proceedings of the 37th International Cosmic Ray Conference (ICRC 2021), Berlin, Germany
Published: 2021
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24. VERITAS contributions to the 37th International Cosmic Ray Conference

Author: Adams, C. B., Archer, A., Benbow, W., Brill, A., Buckley, J. H., Capasso, M., Christiansen, J. L., Chromey, A. J., Errando, M., Falcone, A., Farrell, K. A., Feng, Q., Foote, G. M., Fortson, L., Furniss, A., Gent, A., Gillanders, G. H., Giuri, C., Gueta, O., Hanna, D., Hervet, O., Holder, J., Hona, B., Humensky, T. B., Jin, W., Kaaret, P., Kertzman, M., Kleiner, T. K., Kumar, S., Lang, M. J., Lundy, M., Maier, G., McGrath, C. E, Moriarty, P., Mukherjee, R., Nieto, D., Nievas-Rosillo, M., O'Brien, S., Ong, R. A., Otte, A. N., Patel, S. R., Patel, S., Pfrang, K., Pohl, M., Prado, R. R., Pueschel, E., Quinn, J., Ragan, K., Reynolds, P. T., Ribeiro, D., Roache, E., Ryan, J. L., Sadeh, I., Santander, M., Sembroski, G. H., Shang, R., Tak, D., Vassiliev, V. V., Weinstein, A., Williams, D. A., and Williamson, T. J.
Subjects: Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Abstract: Compilation of papers presented by the VERITAS Collaboration at the 37th International Cosmic Ray Conference (ICRC), held July 12 through July 23, 2021 (online) in Berlin, Germany., Comment: html page. 2021 ICRC, Berlin, Germany
Published: 2021

25. Southern African Large Telescope Spectroscopy of BL Lacs for the CTA project

Author: Kasai, E., Goldoni, P., Backes, M., Cotter, G., Pita, S., Boisson, C., Williams, D. A., D'Ammando, F, Lindfors, E., de Almeida, U. Barres, Max-Moerbeck, W., Navarro-Aranguiz, V., Becerra-Gonzalez, J., Hervet, O., Lenain, J. -P., Sol, H., and Wagner, S.
Subjects: Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena, High Energy Physics - Experiment
Abstract: In the last two decades, very-high-energy gamma-ray astronomy has reached maturity: over 200 sources have been detected, both Galactic and extragalactic, by ground-based experiments. At present, Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) make up about 40% of the more than 200 sources detected at very high energies with ground-based telescopes, the majority of which are blazars, i.e. their jets are closely aligned with the line of sight to Earth and three quarters of which are classified as high-frequency peaked BL Lac objects. One challenge to studies of the cosmological evolution of BL Lacs is the difficulty of obtaining redshifts from their nearly featureless, continuum- dominated spectra. It is expected that a significant fraction of the AGN to be detected with the future Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) observatory will have no spectroscopic redshifts, compromising the reliability of BL Lac population studies, particularly of their cosmic evolution. We started an effort in 2019 to measure the redshifts of a large fraction of the AGN that are likely to be detected with CTA, using the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT). In this contribution, we present two results from an on-going SALT program focused on the determination of BL Lac object redshifts that will be relevant for the CTA observatory., Comment: 15 pages, 4 figures, 37th International Cosmic Ray Conference
Published: 2021

26. TELAMON: Effelsberg Monitoring of AGN Jets with Very-High-Energy Astroparticle Emissions

Author: Kadler, M., Bach, U., Berge, D., Buson, S., Dorner, D., Edwards, P. G., Eppel, F., Giroletti, M., Gokus, A., Hervet, O., Heßdörfer, J., Koyama, S., Kraus, A., Krichbaum, T. P., Lindfors, E., Mannheim, K., de Menezes, R., Ojha, R., Paraschos, G. F., Pueschel, E., Rösch, F., Ros, E., Schleicher, B., Sinapius, J., Sitarek, J., Wilms, J., and Zacharias, M.
Subjects: Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Abstract: We introduce the TELAMON program, which is using the Effelsberg 100-m telescope to monitor the radio spectra of active galactic nuclei (AGN) under scrutiny in astroparticle physics, namely TeV blazars and candidate neutrino-associated AGN. Thanks to its large dish aperture and sensitive instrumentation, the Effelsberg telescope can yield radio data superior over other programs in the low flux-density regime down to several 10 mJy. This is a particular strength in the case of TeV-emitting blazars, which are often comparatively faint radio sources of the high-synchrotron peaked type. We perform high-cadence high-frequency observations every 2-4 weeks at multiple frequencies up to 44 GHz. This setup is well suited to trace dynamical processes in the compact parsec-scale jets of blazars related to high-energy flares or neutrino detections. Our sample currently covers about 40 sources and puts its focus on AGN with very-high-energy astroparticle emission, i.e., TeV blazars and neutrino-associated AGN. Here, we introduce the TELAMON program characteristics and present first results obtained since fall 2020., Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures, Proceedings of the 37th International Cosmic Ray Conference (ICRC2021). 12-23 July, 2021. Berlin, Germany. Online at https://pos.sissa.it/395/
Published: 2021

27. An Archival Search for Neutron-Star Mergers in Gravitational Waves and Very-High-Energy Gamma Rays

Author: Adams, C. B., Benbow, W., Brill, A., Buckley, J. H., Capasso, M., Christiansen, J. L., Chromey, A. J., Daniel, M. K., Errando, M., Falcone, A., Farrell, K. A., Feng, Q., Finley, J. P., Fortson, L., Furniss, A., Gent, A., Giuri, C., Hanna, D., Hassan, T., Hervet, O., Holder, J., Hughes, G., Humensky, T. B., Jin, W., Kaaret, P., Kertzman, M., Kieda, D., Kumar, S., Lang, M. J., Lundy, M., Maier, G., McGrath, C. E, Moriarty, P., Mukherjee, R., Nieto, D., Nievas-Rosillo, M., O'Brien, S., Ong, R. A., Otte, A. N., Park, N., Patel, S., Pfrang, K., Pohl, M., Prado, R. R., Pueschel, E., Quinn, J., Ragan, K., Reynolds, P. T., Ribeiro, D., Roache, E., Ryan, J. L., Santander, M., Sembroski, G. H., Shang, R., Weinstein, A., Williams, D. A., Williamson, T. J., Bartos, I., Corley, K. R., Márka, S., Márka, Z., and Veske, D.
Subjects: Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Abstract: The recent discovery of electromagnetic signals in coincidence with neutron-star mergers has solidified the importance of multimessenger campaigns in studying the most energetic astrophysical events. Pioneering multimessenger observatories, such as LIGO/Virgo and IceCube, record many candidate signals below the detection significance threshold. These sub-threshold event candidates are promising targets for multimessenger studies, as the information provided by them may, when combined with contemporaneous gamma-ray observations, lead to significant detections. Here we describe a new method that uses such candidates to search for transient events using archival very-high-energy gamma-ray data from imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes (IACTs). We demonstrate the application of this method to sub-threshold binary neutron star (BNS) merger candidates identified in Advanced LIGO's first observing run. We identify eight hours of archival VERITAS observations coincident with seven BNS merger candidates and search them for TeV emission. No gamma-ray emission is detected; we calculate upper limits on the integral flux and compare them to a short gamma-ray burst model. We anticipate this search method to serve as a starting point for IACT searches with future LIGO/Virgo data releases as well as in other sub-threshold studies for multimessenger transients, such as IceCube neutrinos. Furthermore, it can be deployed immediately with other current-generation IACTs, and has the potential for real-time use that places minimal burden on experimental operations. Lastly, this method may serve as a pilot for studies with the Cherenkov Telescope Array, which has the potential to observe even larger fields of view in its divergent pointing mode.
Published: 2021
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28. VERITAS Observations of the Galactic Center Region at Multi-TeV Gamma-Ray Energies

Author: Adams, C. B., Benbow, W., Brill, A., Brose, R., Buchovecky, M., Capasso, M., Christiansen, J. L., Chromey, A. J., Daniel, M. K., Errando, M., Falcone, A., Feng, Q., Finley, J. P., Fortson, L., Furniss, A., Gent, A., Gillanders, G. H., Giuri, C., Hanna, D., Hervet, O., Holder, J., Hughes, G., Humensky, T. B., Jin, W., Kaaret, P., Kelley-Hoskins, N., Kertzman, M., Kieda, D., Krennrich, F., Kumar, S., Lang, M. J., Lundy, M., Maier, G., Moriarty, P., Mukherjee, R., Nieto, D., Nievas-Rosillo, M., O'Brien, S., Ong, R. A., Otte, A. N., Pfrang, K., Pohl, M., Prado, R. R., Pueschel, E., Quinn, J., Ragan, K., Reynolds, P. T., Ribeiro, D., Richards, G. T., Roache, E., Ryan, J. L., Santander, M., Schlenstedt, S., Sembroski, G. H., Shang, R., Stevenson, B., Wakely, S. P., Weinstein, A., and Williams, D. A.
Subjects: Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Abstract: The Galactic Center (GC) region hosts a variety of powerful astronomical sources and rare astrophysical processes that emit a large flux of non-thermal radiation. The inner 375 pc x 600 pc region, called the Central Molecular Zone, is home to the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A*, massive cloud complexes, and particle accelerators such as supernova remnants. We present the results of our improved analysis of the very-high-energy (VHE) gamma-ray emission above 2 TeV from the GC using 125 hours of data taken with the VERITAS imaging-atmospheric Cherenkov telescope between 2010 and 2018. The central source VER J1745-290, consistent with the position of Sagittarius A*, is detected at a significance of 38 standard deviations above the background level $(38\sigma)$, and we report its spectrum and light curve. Its differential spectrum is consistent with a power law with exponential cutoff, with a spectral index of $2.12^{+0.22}_{-0.17}$, a flux normalization at 5.3 TeV of $1.27^{+0.22}_{-0.23}\times 10^{-13}$ TeV-1 cm-2 s-1, and cutoff energy of $10.0^{+4.0}_{-2.0}$ TeV. We also present results on the diffuse emission near the GC, obtained by combining data from multiple regions along the GC ridge which yield a cumulative significance of $9.5\sigma$. The diffuse GC ridge spectrum is best fit by a power law with a hard index of 2.19 $\pm$ 0.20, showing no evidence of a cutoff up to 40 TeV. This strengthens the evidence for a potential accelerator of PeV cosmic rays being present in the GC. We also provide spectra of the other sources in our field of view with significant detections, composite supernova remnant G0.9+0.1 and HESS J1746-285., Comment: 19 pages, 8 figures, Accepted for publication in Astrophysical Journal
Published: 2021
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29. Detection of the Crab Nebula with the 9.7 m Prototype Schwarzschild-Couder Telescope

Author: Adams, C. B., Alfaro, R., Ambrosi, G., Ambrosio, M., Aramo, C., Arlen, T., Batista, P. I., Benbow, W., Bertucci, B., Bissaldi, E., Biteau, J., Bitossi, M., Boiano, A., Bonavolontà, C., Bose, R., Bouvier, A., Brill, A., Brown, A. M., Buckley, J. H., Byrum, K., Cameron, R. A., Canestrari, R., Capasso, M., Caprai, M., Covault, C. E., Depaoli, D., Errando, M., Fegan, S., Feng, Q., Fiandrini, E., Foote, G., Fortin, P., Funk, S., Furniss, A., Garfias, F., Gent, A., Giglietto, N., Giordano, F., Giro, E., González, M. M., Guarino, V., Halliday, R., Hervet, O., Holder, J., Hughes, G., Humensky, T. B., Ionica, M., Iriarte, A., Jin, W., Johnson, C. A., Kaaret, P., Kieda, D., Kim, B., Kuznetsov, A., Lapington, J. S., Licciulli, F., Loporchio, S., Mason, V., Meagher, K., Meures, T., Mode, B. A. W., Mognet, S. A. I., Mukherjee, R., Nguyen, T., Nieto, D., Okumura, A., Otte, N., La Palombara, N., Pantaleo, F. R., Paoletti, R., Pareschi, G., Petrashyk, A., Di Pierro, F., Pueschel, E., Reynolds, P. T., Ribeiro, D., Richards, G., Roache, E., Ross, D., Rousselle, J., Rugliancich, A., Ruíz-Díaz-Soto, J., Santander, M., Schlenstedt, S., Schneider, M., Scuderi, S., Shang, R., Sironi, G., Stevenson, B., Stiaccini, L., Tajima, H., Taylor, L. P., Thornhill, J., Tosti, L., Tovmassian, G., Vagelli, V., Valentino, M., Vandenbroucke, J., Vassiliev, V. V., Di Venere, L., Wakely, S. P., Watson, J. J., White, R., Wilcox, P., Williams, D. A., Wood, M., Yu, P., and Zink, A.
Subjects: Astrophysics - Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics, Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Abstract: The Schwarzschild-Couder Telescope (SCT) is a telescope concept proposed for the Cherenkov Telescope Array. It employs a dual-mirror optical design to remove comatic aberrations over an $8^{\circ}$ field of view, and a high-density silicon photomultiplier camera (with a pixel resolution of 4 arcmin) to record Cherenkov emission from cosmic ray and gamma-ray initiated particle cascades in the atmosphere. The prototype SCT (pSCT), comprising a 9.7 m diameter primary mirror and a partially instrumented camera with 1536 pixels, has been constructed at the Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory. The telescope was inaugurated in January 2019, with commissioning continuing throughout 2019. We describe the first campaign of observations with the pSCT, conducted in January and February of 2020, and demonstrate the detection of gamma-ray emission from the Crab Nebula with a statistical significance of $8.6\sigma$., Comment: 13 pages, 12 figures, 3 tables, submitted to Astroparticle Physics
Published: 2020
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30. Optical spectroscopy of Blazars for the Cherenkov Telescope Array

Author: Goldoni, P., Pita, S., Boisson, C., Max-Moerbeck, W., Kasai, E., Williams, D. A., D'Ammando, F., Navarro-Aranguiz, V., Backes, M., de Almeida, U. Barres, Becerra-Gonzalez, J., Cotter, G., Hervet, O., Lenain, J. -P., Lindfors, E., Sol, H., and Wagner, S.
Subjects: Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena, Astrophysics - Astrophysics of Galaxies
Abstract: Context. Blazars are the most numerous class of High Energy (HE; E about 50 MeV - few 100 GeV) and Very High Energy (VHE; E about 100 GeV - 10 TeV) gamma-ray emitters. As of today, a measured spectroscopic redshift is available for only about 50% of gamma-ray BL Lacs, mainly due to the difficulty of measuring reliable redshifts from their nearly featureless, continuum-dominated optical spectra. The knowledge of the redshift is fundamental for understanding the emission from blazars, for population studies and also for indirect studies of the extragalactic background light and searches for Lorentz invariance violation and axion-like particles using blazars. Aims. This paper is the first of a series of papers which aim to measure the redshift of a sample of blazars likely to be detected with the upcoming Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA), a ground based gamma-ray observatory. Methods. Monte Carlo simulations were performed to select those hard spectrum gamma-ray blazars detected with the Fermi-LAT telescope still lacking redshift measurements but likely to be detected by CTA in 30 hours of observing time or less. Optical observing campaigns involving deep imaging and spectroscopic observations were organised to efficiently constrain their redshifts. We performed deep medium to high resolution spectroscopy of nineteen blazar optical counterparts using the ESI spectrograph at Keck, the RSS spectrograph at the SALT telescope, and the EFOSC2 spectrograph at the ESO NTT. We searched systematically for spectral features and, when possible, we estimated the contribution of the host galaxy to the total flux. Results. We measured eleven firm spectroscopic redshifts with values ranging from 0.1116 to 0.482. one tentative redshift, three redshift lower limits including one at z > 0.449 and another at z > 0.868. There were four objects found to have featureless spectra., Comment: Accepted by Astronomy & Astrophysics
Published: 2020
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31. Verification of the Optical System of the 9.7-m Prototype Schwarzschild-Couder Telescope

Author: Adams, C., Alfaro, R., Ambrosi, G., Ambrosio, M., Aramo, C., Benbow, W., Bertucci, B., Bissaldi, E., Bitossi, M., Boiano, A., Bonavolontà, C., Bose, R., Brill, A., Buckley, J. H., Byrum, K., Cameron, R. A., Capasso, M., Caprai, M., Covault, C. E., Di Venere, L., Fegan, S., Feng, Q., Fiandrini, E., Furniss, A., Garczarczyk, M., Garfias, F., Gent, A., Giglietto, N., Giordano, F., González, M. M., Halliday, R., Hervet, O., Hughes, G., Humensky, T. B., Ionica, M., Iriarte, A., Jin, W., Kaarat, P., Kieda, D., Kim, B., Licciulli, F., Limon, M., Loporchio, S., Masone, V., Meures, T., Mode, B. A. W., Mukherjee, R., Nieto, D., Okumura, A., Otte, N., La Palombara, N., Pantaleo, F. R., Paoletti, R., Pareschi, G., Petrashyk, A., Powell, J., Powell, K., Ribeiro, D., Roache, E., Rousselle, J., Rugliancich, A., Ruíz-Díaz-Soto, J., Santander, M., Schlenstedt, S., Scuderi, S., Shang, R., Sironi, G., Stevenson, B., Stiaccini, L., Taylor, L. P., Tosti, L., Tovmassian, G., Vagelli, V., Valentino, M., Vandenbroucke, J., Vassiliev, V. V., Wakely, S. P., Wilcox, P., Williams, D. A., and Yu, P.
Subjects: Astrophysics - Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics, High Energy Physics - Experiment
Abstract: For the first time in the history of ground-based $\gamma$-ray astronomy, the on-axis performance of the dual mirror, aspheric, aplanatic Schwarzschild-Couder optical system has been demonstrated in a $9.7$-m aperture imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescope. The novel design of the prototype Schwarzschild-Couder Telescope (pSCT) is motivated by the need of the next-generation Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) observatory to have the ability to perform wide ($\geq 8^{\circ}$) field-of-view observations simultaneously with superior imaging of atmospheric cascades (resolution of $0.067^{\circ}$ per pixel or better). The pSCT design, if implemented in the CTA installation, has the potential to improve significantly both the $\gamma$-ray angular resolution and the off-axis sensitivity of the observatory, reaching nearly the theoretical limit of the technique and thereby making a major impact on the CTA observatory sky survey programs, follow-up observations of multi-messenger transients with poorly known initial localization, as well as on the spatially resolved spectroscopic studies of extended $\gamma$-ray sources. This contribution reports on the initial alignment procedures and point-spread-function results for the challenging segmented aspheric primary and secondary mirrors of the pSCT., Comment: 19 pages, 11 figures, proceedings for SPIE Optical Engineering + Applications, 2020, Online Only
Published: 2020
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32. Sensitivity of the Cherenkov Telescope Array for probing cosmology and fundamental physics with gamma-ray propagation

Author: Consortium, The Cherenkov Telescope Array, Abdalla, H., Abe, H., Acero, F., Acharyya, A., Adam, R., Agudo, I., Aguirre-Santaella, A., Alfaro, R., Alfaro, J., Alispach, C., Aloisio, R., B, R. Alves, Amati, L., Amato, E., Ambrosi, G., Angüner, E. O., Araudo, A., Armstrong, T., Arqueros, F., Arrabito, L., Asano, K., Ascasíbar, Y., Ashley, M., Backes, M., Balazs, C., Balbo, M., Balmaverde, B., Larriva, A. Baquero, Martins, V. Barbosa, Barkov, M., Baroncelli, L., de Almeida, U. Barres, Barrio, J. A., Batista, P., Becerra, J., Becherini, Y., Beck, G., Tjus, J. Becker, Belmont, R., Benbow, W., Bernardini, E., Berti, A., Berton, M., Bertucci, B., Beshley, V., Bi, B., Biasuzzi, B., Biland, A., Bissaldi, E., Biteau, J., Blanch, O., Bocchino, F., Boisson, C., Bolmont, J., Bonanno, G., Arbeletche, L. Bonneau, Bonnoli, G., Bordas, P., Bottacini, E., Böttcher, M., Bozhilov, V., Bregeon, J., Brill, A., Brown, A. M., Bruno, P., Bruno, A., Bulgarelli, A., Burton, M., Buscemi, M., Caccianiga, A., Cameron, R., Capasso, M., Caprai, M., Caproni, A., Capuzzo-Dolcetta, R., Caraveo, P., Carosi, R., Carosi, A., Casanova, S., Cascone, E., Cauz, D., Cerny, K., Cerruti, M., Chadwick, P., Chaty, S., Chen, A., Chernyakova, M., Chiaro, G., Chiavassa, A., Chytka, L., Conforti, V., Conte, F., Contreras, J. L., Coronado-Blazquez, J., Cortina, J., Costa, A., Costantini, H., Covino, S., Cristofari, P., Cuevas, O., D'Ammando, F., Daniel, M. K., Davies, J., Dazzi, F., De Angelis, A., de Lavergne, M. de Bony, De Caprio, V., Anjos, R. de Cássia dos, Pino, E. M. de Gouveia Dal, De Lotto, B., De Martino, D., de Naurois, M., Wilhelmi, E. de Oña, De Palma, F., de Souza, V., Delgado, C., Della Ceca, R., della Volpe, D., Depaoli, D., Di Girolamo, T., Di Pierro, F., Díaz, C., Díaz-Bahamondes, C., Diebold, S., Djannati-Ataï, A., Dmytriiev, A., Domínguez, A., Donini, A., Dorner, D., Doro, M., Dournaux, J., Dwarkadas, V. V., Ebr, J., Eckner, C., Einecke, S., Ekoume, T. R. N., Elsässer, D., Emery, G., Evoli, C., Fairbairn, M., Falceta-Goncalves, D., Fegan, S., Feng, Q., Ferrand, G., Fiandrini, E., Fiasson, A., Fioretti, V., Foffano, L., Fonseca, M. V., Font, L., Fontaine, G., Franco, F. J., Coromina, L. Freixas, Fukami, S., Fukazawa, Y., Fukui, Y., Gaggero, D., Galanti, G., Gammaldi, V., Garcia, E., Garczarczyk, M., Gascon, D., Gaug, M., Gent, A., Ghalumyan, A., Ghirlanda, G., Gianotti, F., Giarrusso, M., Giavitto, G., Giglietto, N., Giordano, F., Glicenstein, J., Goldoni, P., González, J. M., Gourgouliatos, K., Grabarczyk, T., Grandi, P., Granot, J., Grasso, D., Green, J., Grube, J., Gueta, O., Gunji, S., Halim, A., Harvey, M., Collado, T. Hassan, Hayashi, K., Heller, M., Cadena, S. Hernández, Hervet, O., Hinton, J., Hiroshima, N., Hnatyk, B., Hnatyk, R., Hoffmann, D., Hofmann, W., Holder, J., Horan, D., Hörandel, J., Horvath, P., Hovatta, T., Hrabovsky, M., Hrupec, D., Hughes, G., Hütten, M., Iarlori, M., Inada, T., Inoue, S., Insolia, A., Ionica, M., Iori, M., Jacquemont, M., Jamrozy, M., Janecek, P., Martínez, I. Jiménez, Jin, W., Jung-Richardt, I., Jurysek, J., Kaaret, P., Karas, V., Karkar, S., Kawanaka, N., Kerszberg, D., Khélifi, B., Kissmann, R., Knödlseder, J., Kobayashi, Y., Kohri, K., Komin, N., Kong, A., Kosack, K., Kubo, H., La Palombara, N., Lamanna, G., Lang, R. G., Lapington, J., Laporte, P., Lemoine-Goumard, M., Lenain, J., Leone, F., Leto, G., Leuschner, F., Lindfors, E., Lloyd, S., Lohse, T., Lombardi, S., Longo, F., Lopez, A., López, M., López-Coto, R., Loporchio, S., Lucarelli, F., Luque-Escamilla, P. L., Lyard, E., Maggio, C., Majczyna, A., Makariev, M., Mallamaci, M., Mandat, D., Maneva, G., Manganaro, M., Manicò, G., Marcowith, A., Marculewicz, M., Markoff, S., Marquez, P., Martí, J., Martinez, O., Martínez, M., Martínez, G., Martínez-Huerta, H., Maurin, G., Mazin, D., Mbarubucyeye, J. D., Miranda, D. Medina, Meyer, M., Micanovic, S., Miener, T., Minev, M., Miranda, J. M., Mitchell, A., Mizuno, T., Mode, B., Moderski, R., Mohrmann, L., Molina, E., Montaruli, T., Moralejo, A., Merino, J. Morales, Morcuende-Parrilla, D., Morselli, A., Mukherjee, R., Mundell, C., Murach, T., Muraishi, H., Nagai, A., Nakamori, T., Nemmen, R., Niemiec, J., Nieto, D., Nievas, M., Nikołajuk, M., Nishijima, K., Noda, K., Nosek, D., Nozaki, S., O'Brien, P., Ohira, Y., Ohishi, M., Oka, T., Ong, R. A., Orienti, M., Orito, R., Orlandini, M., Orlando, E., Osborne, J. P., Ostrowski, M., Oya, I., Pagliaro, A., Palatka, M., Paneque, D., Pantaleo, F. R., Paredes, J. M., Parmiggiani, N., Patricelli, B., Pavletić, L., Pe'er, A., Pech, M., Pecimotika, M., Peresano, M., Persic, M., Petruk, O., Pfrang, K., Piatteli, P., Pietropaolo, E., Pillera, R., Pilszyk, B., Pimentel, D., Pintore, F., Pita, S., Pohl, M., Poireau, V., Polo, M., Prado, R. R., Prast, J., Principe, G., Produit, N., Prokoph, H., Prouza, M., Przybilski, H., Pueschel, E., Pühlhofer, G., Pumo, M. L., Punch, M., Queiroz, F., Quirrenbach, A., Rando, R., Razzaque, S., Rebert, E., Recchia, S., Reichherzer, P., Reimer, O., Reimer, A., Renier, Y., Reposeur, T., Rhode, W., Ribeiro, D., Ribó, M., Richtler, T., Rico, J., Rieger, F., Rizi, V., Rodriguez, J., Fernandez, G. Rodriguez, Ramirez, J. C. Rodriguez, Vázquez, J. J. Rodríguez, Romano, P., Romeo, G., Roncadelli, M., Rosado, J., de Leon, A. Rosales, Rowell, G., Rudak, B., Rujopakarn, W., Russo, F., Sadeh, I., Saha, L., Saito, T., Greus, F. Salesa, Sanchez, D., Sánchez-Conde, M., Sangiorgi, P., Sano, H., Santander, M., Santos, E. M., Sanuy, A., Sarkar, S., Saturni, F. G., Sawangwit, U., Scherer, A., Schleicher, B., Schovanek, P., Schussler, F., Schwanke, U., Sciacca, E., Scuderi, S., Arroyo, M. Seglar, Sergijenko, O., Servillat, M., Seweryn, K., Shalchi, A., Sharma, P., Shellard, R. C., Siejkowski, H., Sinha, A., Sliusar, V., Slowikowska, A., Sokolenko, A., Sol, H., Specovius, A., Spencer, S., Spiga, D., Stamerra, A., Stanič, S., Starling, R., Stolarczyk, T., Straumann, U., Strišković, J., Suda, Y., Świerk, P., Tagliaferri, G., Takahashi, H., Takahashi, M., Tavecchio, F., Taylor, L., Tejedor, L. A., Temnikov, P., Terrier, R., Terzic, T., Testa, V., Tian, W., Tibaldo, L., Tonev, D., Torres, D. F., Torresi, E., Tosti, L., Tothill, N., Tovmassian, G., Travnicek, P., Truzzi, S., Tuossenel, F., Umana, G., Vacula, M., Vagelli, V., Valentino, M., Vallage, B., Vallania, P., van Eldik, C., Varner, G. S., Vassiliev, V., Acosta, M. Vázquez, Vecchi, M., Veh, J., Vercellone, S., Vergani, S., Verguilov, V., Vettolani, G. P., Viana, A., Vigorito, C. F., Vitale, V., Vorobiov, S., Vovk, I., Vuillaume, T., Wagner, S. J., Walter, R., Watson, J., White, M., White, R., Wiemann, R., Wierzcholska, A., Will, M., Williams, D. A., Wischnewski, R., Wolter, A., Yamazaki, R., Yanagita, S., Yang, L., Yoshikoshi, T., Zacharias, M., Zaharijas, G., Zaric, D., Zavrtanik, M., Zavrtanik, D., Zech, A., Zechlin, H., Zhdanov, V. I., and Živec, M.
Subjects: Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena, Astrophysics - Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
Abstract: The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA), the new-generation ground-based observatory for $\gamma$-ray astronomy, provides unique capabilities to address significant open questions in astrophysics, cosmology, and fundamental physics. We study some of the salient areas of $\gamma$-ray cosmology that can be explored as part of the Key Science Projects of CTA, through simulated observations of active galactic nuclei (AGN) and of their relativistic jets. Observations of AGN with CTA will enable a measurement of $\gamma$-ray absorption on the extragalactic background light with a statistical uncertainty below 15% up to a redshift $z=2$ and to constrain or detect $\gamma$-ray halos up to intergalactic-magnetic-field strengths of at least 0.3pG. Extragalactic observations with CTA also show promising potential to probe physics beyond the Standard Model. The best limits on Lorentz invariance violation from $\gamma$-ray astronomy will be improved by a factor of at least two to three. CTA will also probe the parameter space in which axion-like particles could constitute a significant fraction, if not all, of dark matter. We conclude on the synergies between CTA and other upcoming facilities that will foster the growth of $\gamma$-ray cosmology., Comment: 71 pages (including affiliations and references), 13 figures, 6 tables. Accepted in JCAP; matches published version. Corresponding authors: Jonathan Biteau, Julien Lefaucheur, Humberto Martinez-Huerta, Manuel Meyer, Santiago Pita, Ievgen Vovk
Published: 2020
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33. Demonstration of stellar intensity interferometry with the four VERITAS telescopes

Author: Abeysekara, A. U., Benbow, W., Brill, A., Buckley, J. H., Christiansen, J. L., Chromey, A. J., Daniel, M. K., Davis, J., Falcone, A., Feng, Q., Finley, J. P., Fortson, L., Furniss, A., Gent, A., Giuri, C., Gueta, O., Hanna, D., Hassan, T., Hervet, O., Holder, J., Hughes, G., Humensky, T. B., Kaaret, P., Kertzman, M., Kieda, D., Krennrich, F., Kumar, S., LeBohec, T., Lin, T. T. Y., Lundy, M., Maier, G., Matthews, N., Moriarty, P., Nievas-Rosillo, R. Mukherjee M., O'Brien, S., Ong, R. A., Otte, A. N., Pfrang, K., Pohl, M., Prado, R. R., Pueschel, E., Quinn, J., Ragan, K., Reynolds, P. T., Ribeiro, D., Richards, G. T., Roache, E., Ryan, J. L., Santander, M., Sembroski, G. H., Wakely, S. P., Weinstein, A., Wilcox, P., Williams, D. A., and Williamson, T. J
Subjects: Astrophysics - Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics, Astrophysics - Solar and Stellar Astrophysics
Abstract: High angular resolution observations at optical wavelengths provide valuable insights in stellar astrophysics, directly measuring fundamental stellar parameters, and probing stellar atmospheres, circumstellar disks, elongation of rapidly rotating stars, and pulsations of Cepheid variable stars. The angular size of most stars are of order one milli-arcsecond or less, and to spatially resolve stellar disks and features at this scale requires an optical interferometer using an array of telescopes with baselines on the order of hundreds of meters. We report on the successful implementation of a stellar intensity interferometry system developed for the four VERITAS imaging atmospheric-Cherenkov telescopes. The system was used to measure the angular diameter of the two sub-mas stars $\beta$ Canis Majoris and $\epsilon$ Orionis with a precision better than 5%. The system utilizes an off-line approach where starlight intensity fluctuations recorded at each telescope are correlated post-observation. The technique can be readily scaled onto tens to hundreds of telescopes, providing a capability that has proven technically challenging to current generation optical amplitude interferometry observatories. This work demonstrates the feasibility of performing astrophysical measurements with imaging atmospheric-Cherenkov telescope arrays as intensity interferometers and the promise for integrating an intensity interferometry system within future observatories such as the Cherenkov Telescope Array., Comment: Accepted for publication in Nature Astronomy (2020)
Published: 2020
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34. VERITAS Discovery of VHE Emission from the Radio Galaxy 3C 264: A Multi-Wavelength Study

Author: Archer, A., Benbow, W., Bird, R., Brill, A., Buchovecky, M., Buckley, J. H., Carini, M. T., Christiansen, J. L., Chromey, A. J., Daniel, M. K., Errando, M., Falcone, A., Feng, Q., Fortin, P., Fortson, L., Furniss, A., Gent, A., Georganopoulos, M., Gillanders, G. H., Giuri, C., Gueta, O., Hanna, D., Hassan, T., Hervet, O., Holder, J., Hughes, G., Humensky, T. B., Kaaret, P., Kertzman, M., Kieda, D., Krennrich, F., Lang, M. J., Lin, T. T. Y., Lister, M. L., Lundy, M., Maier, G., Meyer, E. T., Moriarty, P., Mukherjee, R., Nieto, D., Nievas-Rosillo, M., O'Brien, S., Ong, R. A., Pfrang, K., Pohl, M., Prado, R. R., Pueschel, E., Quinn, J., Ragan, K., Ramirez, K., Reynolds, P. T., Ribeiro, D., Richards, G. T., Roache, E., Rulten, C., Ryan, J. L., Sadun, A., Santander, M., Scott, S. S., Sembroski, G. H., Shahinyan, K., Shang, R., Stevenson, B., Vassiliev, V. V., Wakely, S. P., Weinstein, A., Wilcox, P., Wilhelm, A., Williams, D. A., and Williamson, T. J
Subjects: Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Abstract: The radio source 3C 264, hosted by the giant elliptical galaxy NGC 3862, was observed with VERITAS between February 2017 and May 2019. These deep observations resulted in the discovery of very-high-energy (VHE; E $>100$ GeV) $\gamma$-ray emission from this active galaxy. An analysis of $\sim$57 hours of quality-selected live time yields a detection at the position of the source, corresponding to a statistical significance of 7.8 standard deviations above background. The observed VHE flux is variable on monthly time scales, with an elevated flux seen in 2018 observations. The VHE emission during this elevated state is well-characterized by a power-law spectrum with a photon index $\Gamma = 2.20 \pm 0.27$ and flux F($>315$ GeV) = ($7.6\pm 1.2_{\mathrm stat} \pm 2.3_{\mathrm syst})\times 10^{-13}$ cm$^{-2}$ s$^{-1}$, or approximately 0.7% of the Crab Nebula flux above the same threshold. 3C 264 ($z = 0.0217$) is the most distant radio galaxy detected at VHE, and the elevated state is thought to be similar to that of the famously outbursting jet in M 87. Consequently, extensive contemporaneous multi-wavelength data were acquired in 2018 at the time of the VHE high state. An analysis of these data, including VLBA, VLA, HST, Chandra and Swift observations in addition to the VERITAS data, is presented, along with a discussion of the resulting spectral energy distribution., Comment: 19 pages, 11 figures, Accepted for publication in Astrophysical Journal
Published: 2020
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35. Evidence for proton acceleration up to TeV energies based on VERITAS and Fermi-LAT observations of the Cas A SNR

Author: Abeysekara, A. U., Archer, A., Benbow, W., Bird, R., Brose, R., Buchovecky, M., Buckley, J. H., Chromey, A. J., Cui, W., Daniel, M. K., Das, S., Dwarkadas, V. V., Falcone, A., Feng, Q., Finley, J. P., Fortson, L., Gent, A., Gillanders, G. H., Giuri, C., Gueta, O., Hanna, D., Hassan, T., Hervet, O., Holder, J., Hughes, G., Humensky, T. B., Kaaret, P., Kar, P., Kelley-Hoskins, N., Kertzman, M., Kieda, D., Krause, M., Krennrich, F., Kumar, S., Lang, M. J., Maier, G., Moriarty, P., Mukherjee, R., Nievas-Rosillo, M., O'Brien, S., Ong, R. A., Park, N., Petrashyk, A., Pfrang, K., Pohl, M., Pueschel, E., Quinn, J., Ragan, K., Reynolds, P. T., Richards, G. T., Roache, E., Sadeh, I., Santander, M., Sembroski, G. H., Shahinyan, K., Sushch, I., Weinstein, A., Wilcox, P., Wilhelm, A., Williams, D. A., Williamson, T. J, Zitzer, B., and Ghiotto, A.
Subjects: Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Abstract: We present a study of $\gamma$-ray emission from the core-collapse supernova remnant Cas~A in the energy range from 0.1GeV to 10TeV. We used 65 hours of VERITAS data to cover 200 GeV - 10 TeV, and 10.8 years of \textit{Fermi}-LAT data to cover 0.1-500 GeV. The spectral analysis of \textit{Fermi}-LAT data shows a significant spectral curvature around $1.3 \pm 0.4_{stat}$ GeV that is consistent with the expected spectrum from pion decay. Above this energy, the joint spectrum from \textit{Fermi}-LAT and VERITAS deviates significantly from a simple power-law, and is best described by a power-law with spectral index of $2.17\pm 0.02_{stat}$ with a cut-off energy of $2.3 \pm 0.5_{stat}$ TeV. These results, along with radio, X-ray and $\gamma$-ray data, are interpreted in the context of leptonic and hadronic models. Assuming a one-zone model, we exclude a purely leptonic scenario and conclude that proton acceleration up to at least 6 TeV is required to explain the observed $\gamma$-ray spectrum. From modeling of the entire multi-wavelength spectrum, a minimum magnetic field inside the remnant of $B_{\mathrm{min}}\approx150\,\mathrm{\mu G}$ is deduced., Comment: 33 pages, 9 Figures, 6 Tables
Published: 2020
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36. A decade of multi-wavelength observations of the TeV blazar 1ES 1215+303: Extreme shift of the synchrotron peak frequency and long-term optical-gamma-ray flux increase

Author: Valverde, Janeth, Horan, Deirdre, Bernard, Denis, Fegan, Stephen, Abeysekara, A. U., Archer, A., Benbow, W., Bird, R., Brill, A., Brose, R., Buchovecky, M., Buckley, J. H., Christiansen, J. L., Cui, W., Falcone, A., Feng, Q., Finley, J. P., Fortson, L., Furniss, A., Gent, A., Gillanders, G. H., Giuri, C., Gueta, O., Hanna, D., Hassan, T., Hervet, O., Holder, J., Hughes, G., Humensky, T. B., Kaaret, P., Kelley-Hoskins, N., Kertzman, M., Kieda, D., Krause, M., Krennrich, F., Lang, M. J., Maier, G., Moriarty, P., Mukherjee, R., Nieto, D., Nievas-Rosillo, M., O'Brien, S., Ong, R. A., Otte, A. N., Park, N., Petrashyk, A., Pfrang, K., Pichel, A., Pohl, M., Prado, R. R., Pueschel, E., Quinn, J., Ragan, K., Reynolds, P. T., Ribeiro, D., Richards, G. T., Roache, E., Sadeh, I., Santander, M., Scott, S. S., Sembroski, G. H., Shahinyan, K., Shang, R., Sushch, I., Vassiliev, V. V., Weinstein, A., Wells, R. M., Wilcox, P., Wilhelm, A., Williams, D. A., Williamson, T. J, Noto, Giuliana, Edwards, P. G., Piner, B. G., Ramazani, V. Fallah, Hovatta, T., Jormanainen, J., Lindfors, E., Nilsson, K., Takalo, L., Kovalev, Y. Y., Lister, M. L., Pushkarev, A. B., Savolainen, T., Kiehlmann, S., Max-Moerbeck, W., Readhead, A. C. S., Lähteenmäki, A., and Tornikoski, M.
Subjects: Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Abstract: Blazars are known for their variability on a wide range of timescales at all wavelengths. Most studies of TeV gamma-ray blazars focus on short timescales, especially during flares. With a decade of observations from the Fermi-LAT and VERITAS, we present an extensive study of the long-term multi-wavelength radio-to-gamma-ray flux-density variability, with the addition of a couple of short-time radio-structure and optical polarization observations of the blazar 1ES 1215+303 (z=0.130), with a focus on its gamma-ray emission from 100 MeV to 30 TeV. Multiple strong GeV gamma-ray flares, a long-term increase in the gamma-ray and optical flux baseline and a linear correlation between these two bands are observed over the ten-year period. Typical HBL behaviors are identified in the radio morphology and broadband spectrum of the source. Three stationary features in the innermost jet are resolved by VLBA at 43.1, 22.2, and 15.3 GHz. We employ a two-component synchrotron self-Compton model to describe different flux states of the source, including the epoch during which an extreme shift in energy of the synchrotron peak frequency from infrared to soft X-rays is observed., Comment: Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal
Published: 2020
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37. The Great Markarian 421 Flare of February 2010: Multiwavelength variability and correlation studies

Author: Abeysekara, A. U., Benbow, W., Bird, R., Brill, A., Brose, R., Buchovecky, M., Buckley, J. H., Christiansen, J. L., Chromey, A. J., Daniel, M. K., Dumm, J., Falcone, A., Feng, Q., Finley, J. P., Fortson, L., Furniss, A., Galante, N., Gent, A., Gillanders, G. H., Giuri, C., Gueta, O., Hassan, T., Hervet, O., Holder, J., Hughes, G., Humensky, T. B., Johnson, C. A., Kaaret, P., Kar, P., Kelley-Hoskins, N., Kertzman, M., Kieda, D., Krause, M., Krennrich, F., Kumar, S., Lang, M. J., Moriarty, P., Mukherjee, R., Nelson, T., Nieto, D., Nievas-Rosillo, M., O'Brien, S., Ong, R. A., Otte, A. N., Park, N., Petrashyk, A., Pichel, A., Pohl, M., Prado, R. R., Pueschel, E., Quinn, J., Ragan, K., Reynolds, P. T., Richards, G. T., Roache, E., Rovero, A. C., Rulten, C., Sadeh, I., Santander, M., Sembroski, G. H., Shahinyan, K., Stevenson, B., Sushch, I., Tyler, J., Vassiliev, V. V., Wakely, S. P., Weinstein, A., Wells, R. M., Wilcox, P., Wilhelm, A., Williams, D. A., Zitzer, B., Acciari, V. A., Ansoldi, S., Antonelli, L. A., Engels, A. Arbet, Baack, D., Babić, A., Banerjee, B., de Almeida, U. Barres, Barrio, J. A., González, J. Becerra, Bednarek, W., Bellizzi, L., Bernardini, E., Berti, A., Besenrieder, J., Bhattacharyya, W., Bigongiari, C., Biland, A., Blanch, O., Bonnoli, G., Busetto, G., Carosi, R., Ceribella, G., Chai, Y., Cikota, S., Colak, S. M., Colin, U., Colombo, E., Contreras, J. L., Cortina, J., Covino, S., D'Elia, V., Da Vela, P., Dazzi, F., De Angelis, A., De Lotto, B., Delfino, M., Delgado, J., Di Pierro, F., Espiñera, E. Do Souto, Prester, D. Dominis, Dorner, D., Doro, M., Einecke, S., Elsaesser, D., Ramazani, V. Fallah, Fattorini, A., Fernández-Barral, A., Ferrara, G., Fidalgo, D., Foffano, L., Fonseca, M. V., Font, L., Fruck, C., Galindo, D., Gallozzi, S., López, R. J. García, Garczarczyk, M., Gasparyan, S., Gaug, M., Godinović, N., Green, D., Guberman, D., Hadasch, D., Hahn, A., Herrera, J., Hoang, J., Hrupec, D., Inoue, S., Ishio, K., Iwamura, Y., Kubo, H., Kushida, J., Lamastra, A., Lelas, D., Leone, F., Lindfors, E., Lombardi, S., Longo, F., López, M., López-Coto, R., López-Oramas, A., Fraga, B. Machado de Oliveira, Maggio, C., Majumdar, P., Makariev, M., Mallamaci, M., Maneva, G., Manganaro, M., Mannheim, K., Maraschi, L., Mariotti, M., Martínez, M., Masuda, S., Mazin, D., Miceli, D., Minev, M., Miranda, J. M., Mirzoyan, R., Molina, E., Moralejo, A., Morcuende, D., Moreno, V., Moretti, E., Munar-Adrover, P., Neustroev, V., Niedzwiecki, A., Rosillo, M. Nievas, Nigro, C., Nilsson, K., Ninci, D., Nishijima, K., Noda, K., Nogués, L., Nöthe, M., Paiano, S., Palacio, J., Palatiello, M., Paneque, D., Paoletti, R., Paredes, J. M., Peñil, P., Peresano, M., Persic, M., Moroni, P. G. Prada, Prandini, E., Puljak, I., Rhode, W., Ribó, M., Rico, J., Righi, C., Rugliancich, A., Saha, L., Sahakyan, N., Saito, T., Satalecka, K., Schweizer, T., Sitarek, J., Šnidarić, I., Sobczynska, D., Somero, A., Stamerra, A., Strom, D., Strzys, M., Sun, S., Surić, T., Tavecchio, F., Temnikov, P., Terzić, T., Teshima, M., Torres-Albà, N., Tsujimoto, S., van Scherpenberg, J., Vanzo, G., Acosta, M. Vazquez, Vovk, I., Will, M., Zarić, D., Aller, H. D., Aller, M. F., Carini, M. T., Horan, D., Jordan, B., Jorstad, Svetlana G., Kurtanidze, O. M., Kurtanidze, S. O., Lähteenmäki, A., Larionov, V. M., Larionova, E. G., Madejski, G., Marscher, Alan P., Max-Moerbeck, W., Moody, J. Ward, Morozova, D. A., Nikolashvili, M. G., Raiteri, C. M., Readhead, A. C. S., Richards, J. L., Sadun, Alberto C., Sakamoto, T., Sigua, L. A., Smith, P. S., Talvikki, H., Tammi, J., Tornikoski, M., Troitsky, I. S., and Villata, M.
Subjects: Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Abstract: We report on variability and correlation studies using multiwavelength observations of the blazar Mrk 421 during the month of February, 2010 when an extraordinary flare reaching a level of $\sim$27~Crab Units above 1~TeV was measured in very-high-energy (VHE) $\gamma$-rays with the VERITAS observatory. This is the highest flux state for Mrk 421 ever observed in VHE $\gamma$-rays. Data are analyzed from a coordinated campaign across multiple instruments including VHE $\gamma$-ray (VERITAS, MAGIC), high-energy (HE) $\gamma$-ray (Fermi-LAT), X-ray (Swift}, RXTE, MAXI), optical (including the GASP-WEBT collaboration and polarization data) and radio (Mets\"ahovi, OVRO, UMRAO). Light curves are produced spanning multiple days before and after the peak of the VHE flare, including over several flare `decline' epochs. The main flare statistics allow 2-minute time bins to be constructed in both the VHE and optical bands enabling a cross-correlation analysis that shows evidence for an optical lag of $\sim$25-55 minutes, the first time-lagged correlation between these bands reported on such short timescales. Limits on the Doppler factor ($\delta \gtrsim 33$) and the size of the emission region ($ \delta^{-1}R_B \lesssim 3.8\times 10^{13}\,\,\mbox{cm}$) are obtained from the fast variability observed by VERITAS during the main flare. Analysis of 10-minute-binned VHE and X-ray data over the decline epochs shows an extraordinary range of behavior in the flux-flux relationship: from linear to quadratic to lack of correlation to anti-correlation. Taken together, these detailed observations of an unprecedented flare seen in Mrk 421 are difficult to explain by the classic single-zone synchrotron self-Compton model., Comment: 41 pages including 3 appendices, 13 figures; version accepted to Astrophysical Journal
Published: 2020
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38. VERITAS Detection of LS 5039 and HESS J1825-137

Author: VERITAS Collaboration, Abeysekara, A. U., Benbow, W., Bird, R., Brose, R., Christiansen, J. L., Chromey, A. J., Cui, W., Daniel, M. K., Falcone, A., Fortson, L., Hanna, D., Hassan, T., Hervet, O., Holder, J., Hughes, G., Humensky, T. B., Kaaret, P., Kar, P., Kelley-Hoskins, N., Kertzman, M., Kieda, D., Krause, M., Lang, M. J., Maier, G., Moriarty, P., Nieto, D., Nievas-Rosillo, M., Ong, R. A., Pandel, D., Pohl, M., Prado, R. R., Pueschel, E., Quinn, J., Ragan, K., Reynolds, P. T., Richards, G. T., Roache, E., Sadeh, I., Santander, M., Sembroski, G. H., Weinstein, A., Wilcox, P., Williams, D. A., and Williamson, T. J
Subjects: Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Abstract: With 8 hours of observations, VERITAS confirms the detection of two very high energy gamma-ray sources. The gamma-ray binary LS 5039 is detected with a statistical significance of $8.8\sigma$. The measured flux above 1 TeV is $(2.5 \pm 0.4) \times 10^{-12} \rm \, cm^{-2} \, s^{-1}$ near inferior conjunction and $(7.8 \pm 2.8) \times 10^{-13} \rm \, cm^{-2} \, s^{-1}$ near superior conjunction. The pulsar wind nebula HESS J1825-137 is detected with a statistical significance of $6.7\sigma$ and a measured flux above 1 TeV of $(3.9 \pm 0.8) \times 10^{-12} \rm \, cm^{-2} \, s^{-1}$., Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures
Published: 2020
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39. Probing the Properties of the Pulsar Wind in the Gamma-Ray Binary HESS J0632+057 with NuSTAR and VERITAS Observations

Author: Archer, A., Benbow, W., Bird, R., Brill, A., Brose, R., Buchovecky, M., Christiansen, J. L., Chromey, A. J., Cui, W., Falcone, A., Feng, Q., Finley, J. P., Fortson, L., Furniss, A., Gent, A., Gillanders, G. H., Giuri, C., Gueta, O., Hanna, D., Hassan, T., Hervet, O., Holder, J., Hughes, G., Humensky, T. B., Kaaret, P., Kelley-Hoskins, N., Kertzman, M., Kieda, D., Krause, M., Lang, M. J., Maier, G., Moriarty, P., Mukherjee, R., Nieto, D., Nievas-Rosillo, M., O'Brien, S., Ong, R. A., Otte, A. N., Park, N., Petrashyk, A., Pfrang, K., Pohl, M., Prado, R. R., Pueschel, E., Quinn, J., Ragan, K., Reynolds, P. T., Ribeiro, D., Richards, G. T., Roache, E., Sadeh, I., Santander, M., Schlenstedt, S., Sembroski, G. H., Sushch, I., Weinstein, A., Wilcox, P., Wilhelm, A., Williams, D. A., Williamson, T. J, Hailey, C. J., Mandel, S., and Mori, K.
Subjects: Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Abstract: HESS J0632+057 is a gamma-ray binary composed of a compact object orbiting a Be star with a period of about $315$ days. Extensive X-ray and TeV gamma-ray observations have revealed a peculiar light curve containing two peaks, separated by a dip. We present the results of simultaneous observations in hard X-rays with NuSTAR and in TeV gamma-rays with VERITAS, performed in November and December 2017. These observations correspond to the orbital phases $\phi\approx0.22$ and $0.3$, where the fluxes are rising towards the first light-curve peak. A significant variation of the spectral index from 1.77$\pm$0.05 to 1.56$\pm$0.05 is observed in the X-ray data. The multi-wavelength spectral energy distributions (SED) derived from the observations are interpreted in terms of a leptonic model, in which the compact object is assumed to be a pulsar and non-thermal radiation is emitted by high-energy electrons accelerated at the shock formed by the collision between the stellar and pulsar wind. The results of the SED fitting show that our data can be consistently described within this scenario, and allow us to estimate the magnetization of the pulsar wind at the location of the shock formation. The constraints on the pulsar-wind magnetization provided by our results are shown to be consistent with those obtained from other systems., Comment: Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal
Published: 2019
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40. Measurement of the extragalactic background light spectral energy distribution with VERITAS

Author: VERITAS collaboration, Abeysekara, A. U., Archer, A., Benbow, W., Bird, R., Brill, A., Brose, R., Buchovecky, M., Christiansen, J. L., Cui, W., Daniel, M. K., Falcone, A., Feng, Q., Fernandez-Alonso, M., Finley, J. P., Fortson, L., Furniss, A., Gent, A., Giuri, C., Gueta, O., Hanna, D., Hassan, T., Hervet, O., Holder, J., Hughes, G., Humensky, T. B., Johnson, C. A., Kaaret, P., Kertzman, M., Kieda, D., Krause, M., Krennrich, F., Kumar, S., Lang, M. J., Maier, G., Moriarty, P., Mukherjee, R., Nievas-Rosillo, M., O'Brien, S., Ong, R. A., Pfrang, K., Pohl, M., Prado, R. R., Pueschel, E., Ragan, K., Reynolds, P. T., Ribeiro, D., Richards, G. T., Roache, E., Rovero, A. C., Sadeh, I., Santander, M., Sembroski, G. H., Shahinyan, K., Sushch, I., Weinstein, A., Wells, R. M., Wilcox, P., Wilhelm, A., Williams, D. A., Williamson, T. J, and Zitzer, B.
Subjects: Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Abstract: The extragalactic background light (EBL), a diffuse photon field in the optical and infrared range, is a record of radiative processes over the Universe's history. Spectral measurements of blazars at very high energies ($>$100 GeV) enable the reconstruction of the spectral energy distribution (SED) of the EBL, as the blazar spectra are modified by redshift- and energy-dependent interactions of the gamma-ray photons with the EBL. The spectra of 14 VERITAS-detected blazars are included in a new measurement of the EBL SED that is independent of EBL SED models. The resulting SED covers an EBL wavelength range of 0.56--56 $\mu$m, and is in good agreement with lower limits obtained by assuming that the EBL is entirely due to radiation from cataloged galaxies., Comment: Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal
Published: 2019
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41. Camera design and performance of the prototype Schwarzschild-Couder Telescope for the Cherenkov Telescope Array

Author: Adams, C., Ambrosi, G., Ambrosio, M., Aramo, C., Benbow, W., Bertucci, B., Bissaldi, E., Bitossi, M., Boiano, A., Bonavolonta, C., Bose, R., Brill, A., Buckley, J. H., Caprai, M., Di Venere, L., Feng, Q., Fiandrini, E., Giglietto, N., Giordano, F., Hervet, O., Hughes, G., Humensky, T. B., Ionica, M., Jin, W., Kaaret, P., Kieda, D., Kim, B., Licciulli, F., Loporchio, S., Masone, V., Meures, T., Mode, B. A. W., Mukherjee, R., Pantaleo, F. R., Okumura, A., Petrashyk, A., Powell, J., Paoletti, R., Ribeiro, D., Rugliancich, A., Santander, M., Shang, R., Stevenson, B., Stiaccini, L., Taylor, L. P., Tosti, L., Vagelli, V., Valentino, M., Vandenbroucke, J., Vassiliev, V., Wilcox, P., and Williams, D. A.
Subjects: Astrophysics - Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
Abstract: The Schwarzschild-Couder Telescope (SCT) is a candidate technology for a medium-sized telescope within the Cherenkov Telescope Array, the next generation ground based observatory for very high energy gamma ray astronomy. The SCT uses a novel two-mirror design and is expected to yield improvements in field of view and image resolution compared to traditional Cherenkov telescopes based on single-mirror-dish optics. To match the improved optical resolution, challenging requirements of high channel count and density at low power consumption must be overcome by the camera. The prototype camera, currently commissioned and tested on the prototype SCT, has been developed based on millimeter scale SiPM pixels and a custom high density digitizer ASIC, TARGET, to provide 1600 pixels spanning a 2.7 degree field of view while being able to sample nanosecond photon pulses. It is mechanically designed to allow for an upgrade to 11,328 pixels covering a field of view of 8 degrees and demonstrating the full potential of the technology. The camera was installed on the telescope in 2018. We will present its design and performance including first light data., Comment: ICRC 2019 Proceeding
Published: 2019

42. Prototype Schwarzschild-Couder Telescope for the Cherenkov Telescope Array: Commissioning Status of the Optical System

Author: Adams, C., Ambrosi, G., Ambrosio, M., Aramo, C., Benbow, W., Bertucci, B., Bissaldi, E., Bitossi, M., Boiano, A., Bonavolontà, C., Bose, R., Brill, A., Buckley, J. H., Caprai, M., Covault, C. E., Di Venere, L., Fegan, S., Feng, Q., Fiandrini, E., Gent, A., Giglietto, N., Giordano, F., Halliday, R., Hervet, O., Hughes, G., Humensky, T. B., Ionica, M., Jin, W., Kaaret, P., Kieda, D., Kim, B., Licciulli, F., Loporchio, S., Masone, V., Meures, T., Mode, B. A. W., Mukherjee, R., Okumura, A., Otte, N., Pantaleo, F. R., Paoletti, R., Petrashyk, A., Powell, J., Powell, K., Ribeiro, D., Rousselle, J., Rugliancich, A., Santander, M., Shang, R., Stevenson, B., Stiaccini, L., Taylor, L. P., Tosti, L., Vagelli, V., Valentino, M., Vandenbroucke, J., Vassiliev, V., Wilcox, P., and Williams, D. A.
Subjects: Astrophysics - Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
Abstract: The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA), with more than 100 telescopes, will be the largest ever ground-based gamma-ray observatory and is expected to greatly improve on both gamma-ray detection sensitivity and energy coverage compared to current-generation detectors. The 9.7-m Schwarzschild-Couder telescope (SCT) is one of the two candidates for the medium size telescope (MST) design for CTA. The novel aplanatic dual-mirror SCT design offers a wide field-of-view with a compact plate scale, allowing for a large number of camera pixels that improves the angular resolution and reduce the night sky background noise per pixel compared to the traditional single-mirror Davies-Cotton (DC) design of ground-based gamma-ray telescopes. The production, installation, and the alignment of the segmented aspherical mirrors are the main challenges for the realization of the SCT optical system. In this contribution, we report on the commissioning status, the alignment procedures, and initial alignment results during the initial commissioning phase of the optical system of the prototype SCT., Comment: 8 pages, PoS proceedings 36th ICRC 2019 Madison
Published: 2019

43. Development and operations of INFN optical modules for the SCT Telescope camera proposed for the Cherenkov Telescope Array Observatory

Author: Adams, C., Ambrosi, G., Ambrosio, M., Aramo, C., Benbow, W., Bertucci, B., Bissaldi, E., Bitossi, M., Boiano, A., Bonavolontà, C., Bose, R., Brill, A., Buckley, J. H., Caprai, M., Covault, C. E., Di Venere, L., Feng, Q., Fiandrini, E., Gent, A., Giglietto, N., Giordano, F., Halliday, R., Hervet, O., Hughes, G., Humensky, T. B., Ionica, M., Jin, W., Kaaret, P., Kieda, D., Kim, B., Licciulli, F., Loporchio, S., Masone, V., Meures, T., Mode, B. A. W., Mukherjee, R., Okumura, A., Otte, N., Pantaleo, F. R., Paoletti, R., Petrashyk, A., Powell, J., Powell, K., Ribeiro, D., Rugliancich, A., Santander, M., Shang, R., Stevenson, B., Stiaccini, L., Taylor, L. P., Tosti, L., Vagelli, V., Valentino, M., Vandenbroucke, J., Vassiliev, V., Wilcox, P., and Williams, D. A.
Subjects: Astrophysics - Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
Abstract: The Schwarzschild-Couder Telescope (SCT) is a proposal for the Medium Size Telescopes of the Cherenkov Telescope Array. Its concept is based on a two-mirror optical system designed to improve the telescope field of view and image resolution with respect to the single mirror Davies-Cotton solution. The SCT camera is planned to be instrumented with 177 photodetection modules, each composed of 64 Silicon Photomultiplier (SiPM) pixels. The third generation of $6 x 6~mm^2$ high density NUV SiPMs (NUV-HD3) produced by Fondazione Bruno Kessler (FBK) in collaboration with INFN has been used to equip optical units to be integrated on the upgrade of the camera of the SCT prototype (pSCT). Each optical unit is composed of an array of 16 NUV-HD3 SiPMs coupled with the front-end electronics, which is designed for full-waveform nanosecond readout and digitization using the TARGET-7 ASIC. Several optical units have been assembled and tested in the laboratories of INFN and have been integrated on the camera of the pSCT telescope, that is currently operating at the Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory. In this contribution we report on the development, assembly and calibration of the optical units that are currently taking data on the pSCT camera., Comment: 8 pages, proceeding ICRC
Published: 2019

44. VERITAS contributions to the 36th International Cosmic Ray Conference

Author: Abeysekara, A. U., Archer, A., Benbow, W., Bird, R., Brill, A., Brose, R., Buckley, J. H., Christiansen, J. L., Chromey, A. J., Daniel, M. K., Das, S., Falcone, A., Feng, Q., Finley, J. P., Fortson, L., Furniss, A., Gent, A., Gillanders, G. H., Giuri, C., Gueta, O., Hanna, D., Hassan, T., Hervet, O., Holder, J., Hughes, G., Humensky, T. B., Kaaret, P., Kelley-Hoskins, N., Kertzman, M., Kieda, D., Krause, M., Kumar, S., Lang, M. J., Lin, T. T. Y., Lundy, M., Maier, G., Matthews, N., Moriarty, P., Mukherjee, R., Nievas-Rosillo, M., O'Brien, S., Ong, R. A., Otte, A. N., Park, N., Petrashyk, A., Pfrang, K., Pohl, M., Prado, R. R., Pueschel, E., Quinn, J., Ragan, K., Reynolds, P. T., Ribeiro, D., Richards, G. T., Roache, E., Sadeh, I., Santander, M., Schlenstedt, S., Scott, S. S., Sembroski, G. H., Shang, R., Vassiliev, V. V., Wakely, S. P., Weinstein, A., Wells, R. M., Wilcox, P., Williams, D. A., and Williamson, T. J
Subjects: Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Abstract: Compilation of papers presented by the VERITAS Collaboration at the 36th International Cosmic Ray Conference (ICRC), held July 24 through August 1, 2019 in Madison, Wisconsin., Comment: html page. 2019 ICRC, Madison, Wisconsin
Published: 2019

45. Normalization of the extragalactic background light from high-energy gamma-ray observations

Author: Biasuzzi, B., Hervet, O., Williams, D. A., and Biteau, J.
Subjects: Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Abstract: Extragalactic background light (EBL) plays an important role in cosmology since it traces the history of galaxy formation and evolution. Such diffuse radiation from near-UV to far-infrared wavelengths can interact with $\gamma$-rays from distant sources such as active galactic nuclei (AGNs), and is responsible for the high-energy absorption observed in their spectra. However, probing the EBL from $\gamma$-ray spectra of AGNs is not trivial due to internal processes that can mimic its effect. Such processes are usually taken into account in terms of curvature of the intrinsic spectrum. Hence, an improper choice of parametrization for the latter can seriously affect EBL reconstruction. In this paper, we propose a statistical approach that avoids a priori assumptions on the intrinsic spectral curvature and that, for each source, selects the best-fit model on a solid statistical basis. By combining the ${\it Fermi}$-LAT observations of 490 blazars, we determine the $\gamma$-ray-inferred level of EBL for various state-of-the-art EBL models. We discuss the EBL level obtained from the spectra of both BL Lacs and flat spectrum radio quasars (FSRQ) in order to investigate the impact of internal absorption in different classes of objects. We further scrutinize constraints on the EBL evolution from $\gamma$-ray observations by reconstructing the EBL level in four redshift ranges, up to $z\sim2.5$. The approach implemented in this paper, carefully addressing the question of the modeling of the intrinsic emission at the source, can serve as a solid stepping stone for studies of hundreds of high-quality spectra acquired by next-generation $\gamma$-ray instruments., Comment: 12 pages, 8 figures. Accepted by A&A on 3rd June 2019
Published: 2019
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46. A Search for Pulsed Very High-Energy Gamma Rays from Thirteen Young Pulsars in Archival VERITAS Data

Author: Archer, A., Benbow, W., Bird, R., Brose, R., Buchovecky, M., Buckley, J. H., Chromey, A. J., Cui, W., Falcone, A., Feng, Q., Finley, J. P., Fortson, L., Furniss, A., Gent, A., Gueta, O., Hanna, D., Hassan, T., Hervet, O., Holder, J., Hughes, G., Humensky, T. B., Johnson, C. A., Kaaret, P., Kar, P., Kelley-Hoskins, N., Kertzman, M., Kieda, D., Krennrich, F., Kumar, S., Lang, M. J., Lin, T. T. Y., McCann, A., Moriarty, P., Mukherjee, R., O'Brien, S., Ong, R. A., Otte, A. N., Pandel, D., Park, N., Petrashyk, A., Pohl, M., Pueschel, E., Quinn, J., Ragan, K., Richards, G. T., Roache, E., Sadeh, I., Santander, M., Scott, S. S., Sembroski, G. H., Shahinyan, K., Sushch, I., Tyler, J., Wakely, S. P., Weinstein, A., Wells, R. M., Wilcox, P., Wilhelm, A., Williams, D. A., Williamson, T. J, and Zitzer, B.
Subjects: Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Abstract: We conduct a search for periodic emission in the very high-energy gamma-ray band (VHE; E > 100 GeV) from a total of 13 pulsars in an archival VERITAS data set with a total exposure of over 450 hours. The set of pulsars includes many of the brightest young gamma-ray pulsars visible in the Northern Hemisphere. The data analysis resulted in non-detections of pulsed VHE gamma rays from each pulsar. Upper limits on a potential VHE gamma-ray flux are derived at the 95% confidence level above three energy thresholds using two methods. These are the first such searches for pulsed VHE emission from each of the pulsars, and the obtained limits constrain a possible flux component manifesting at VHEs as is seen for the Crab pulsar., Comment: 32 pages, 20 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ
Published: 2019
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47. Monte Carlo studies for the optimisation of the Cherenkov Telescope Array layout

Author: Acharyya, A., Agudo, I., Angüner, E. O., Alfaro, R., Alfaro, J., Alispach, C., Aloisio, R., Batista, R. Alves, Amans, J. -P., Amati, L., Amato, E., Ambrosi, G., Antonelli, L. A., Aramo, C., Armstrong, T., Arqueros, F., Arrabito, L., Asano, K., Ashkar, H., Balazs, C., Balbo, M., Balmaverde, B., Barai, P., Barbano, A., Barkov, M., de Almeida, U. Barres, Barrio, J. A., Bastieri, D., González, J. Becerra, Tjus, J. Becker, Bellizzi, L., Benbow, W., Bernardini, E., Bernardos, M. I., Bernlöhr, K., Berti, A., Berton, M., Bertucci, B., Beshley, V., Biasuzzi, B., Bigongiari, C., Bird, R., Bissaldi, E., Biteau, J., Blanch, O., Blazek, J., Boisson, C., Bonanno, G., Bonardi, A., Bonavolontà, C., Bonnoli, G., Bordas, P., Böttcher, M., Bregeon, J., Brill, A., Brown, A. M., Brügge, K., Brun, P., Bruno, P., Bulgarelli, A., Bulik, T., Burton, M., Burtovoi, A., Busetto, G., Cameron, R., Canestrari, R., Capalbi, M., Caproni, A., Capuzzo-Dolcetta, R., Caraveo, P., Caroff, S., Carosi, R., Casanova, S., Cascone, E., Cassol, F., Catalani, F., Catalano, O., Cauz, D., Cerruti, M., Chaty, S., Chen, A., Chernyakova, M., Chiaro, G., Cieślar, M., Colak, S. M., Conforti, V., Congiu, E., Contreras, J. L., Cortina, J., Costa, A., Costantini, H., Cotter, G., Cristofari, P., Cumani, P., Cusumano, G., D'Aì, A., D'Ammando, F., Dangeon, L., Da Vela, P., Dazzi, F., De Angelis, A., De Caprio, V., Anjos, R. de Cássia dos, De Frondat, F., Pino, E. M. de Gouveia Dal, De Lotto, B., De Martino, D., de Naurois, M., Wilhelmi, E. de Oña, de Palma, F., de Souza, V., Del Santo, M., Delgado, C., della Volpe, D., Di Girolamo, T., Di Pierro, F., Di Venere, L., Díaz, C., Diebold, S., Djannati-Ataï, A., Dmytriiev, A., Prester, D. Dominis, Donini, A., Dorner, D., Doro, M., Dournaux, J. -L., Ebr, J., Ekoume, T. R. N., Elsässer, D., Emery, G., Falceta-Goncalves, D., Fedorova, E., Fegan, S., Feng, Q., Ferrand, G., Fiandrini, E., Fiasson, A., Filipovic, M., Fioretti, V., Fiori, M., Flis, S., Fonseca, M. V., Fontaine, G., Coromina, L. Freixas, Fukami, S., Fukui, Y., Funk, S., Füßling, M., Gaggero, D., Galanti, G., López, R. J. Garcia, Garczarczyk, M., Gascon, D., Gasparetto, T., Gaug, M., Ghalumyan, A., Gianotti, F., Giavitto, G., Giglietto, N., Giordano, F., Giroletti, M., Gironnet, J., Glicenstein, J. -F., Gnatyk, R., Goldoni, P., González, J. M., González, M. M., Gourgouliatos, K. N., Grabarczyk, T., Granot, J., Green, D., Greenshaw, T., Grondin, M. -H., Gueta, O., Hadasch, D., Hassan, T., Hayashida, M., Heller, M., Hervet, O., Hinton, J., Hiroshima, N., Hnatyk, B., Hofmann, W., Horvath, P., Hrabovsky, M., Hrupec, D., Humensky, T. B., Hütten, M., Inada, T., Iocco, F., Ionica, M., Iori, M., Iwamura, Y., Jamrozy, M., Janecek, P., Jankowsky, D., Jean, P., Jouvin, L., Jurysek, J., Kaaret, P., Kadowaki, L. H. S., Karkar, S., Kerszberg, D., Khélifi, B., Kieda, D., Kimeswenger, S., Kluźniak, W., Knapp, J., Knödlseder, J., Kobayashi, Y., Koch, B., Kocot, J., Komin, N., Kong, A., Kowal, G., Krause, M., Kubo, H., Kushida, J., Kushwaha, P., La Parola, V., La Rosa, G., Arquillo, M. Lallena, Lang, R. G., Lapington, J., Blanc, O. Le, Lefaucheur, J., de Oliveira, M. A. Leigui, Lemoine-Goumard, M., Lenain, J. -P., Leto, G., Lico, R., Lindfors, E., Lohse, T., Lombardi, S., Longo, F., Lopez, A., López, M., Lopez-Oramas, A., López-Coto, R., Loporchio, S., Luque-Escamilla, P. L., Lyard, E., Maccarone, M. C., Mach, E., Maggio, C., Majumdar, P., Malaguti, G., Mallamaci, M., Mandat, D., Maneva, G., Manganaro, M., Mangano, S., Marculewicz, M., Mariotti, M., Martí, J., Martínez, M., Martínez, G., Martínez-Huerta, H., Masuda, S., Maxted, N., Mazin, D., Meunier, J. -L., Meyer, M., Micanovic, S., Millul, R., Minaya, I. A., Mitchell, A., Mizuno, T., Moderski, R., Mohrmann, L., Montaruli, T., Moralejo, A., Morcuende, D., Morlino, G., Morselli, A., Moulin, E., Mukherjee, R., Munar, P., Mundell, C., Murach, T., Nagai, A., Nagayoshi, T., Naito, T., Nakamori, T., Nemmen, R., Niemiec, J., Nieto, D., Rosillo, M. Nievas, Nikołajuk, M., Ninci, D., Nishijima, K., Noda, K., Nosek, D., Nöthe, M., Nozaki, S., Ohishi, M., Ohtani, Y., Okumura, A., Ong, R. A., Orienti, M., Orito, R., Ostrowski, M., Otte, N., Ou, Z., Oya, I., Pagliaro, A., Palatiello, M., Palatka, M., Paoletti, R., Paredes, J. M., Pareschi, G., Parmiggiani, N., Parsons, R. D., Patricelli, B., Pe'er, A., Pech, M., Del Campo, P. Peñil, Pérez-Romero, J., Perri, M., Persic, M., Petrucci, P. -O., Petruk, O., Pfrang, K., Piel, Q., Pietropaolo, E., Pohl, M., Polo, M., Poutanen, J., Prandini, E., Produit, N., Prokoph, H., Prouza, M., Przybilski, H., Pühlhofer, G., Punch, M., Queiroz, F., Quirrenbach, A., Rainò, S., Rando, R., Razzaque, S., Reimer, O., Renault-Tinacci, N., Renier, Y., Ribeiro, D., Ribó, M., Rico, J., Rieger, F., Rizi, V., Fernandez, G. Rodriguez, Rodriguez-Ramirez, J. C., Vázquez, J. J. Rodríguez, Romano, P., Romeo, G., Roncadelli, M., Rosado, J., Rowell, G., Rudak, B., Rugliancich, A., Rulten, C., Sadeh, I., Saha, L., Saito, T., Sakurai, S., Greus, F. Salesa, Sangiorgi, P., Sano, H., Santander, M., Santangelo, A., Santos-Lima, R., Sanuy, A., Satalecka, K., Saturni, F. G., Sawangwit, U., Schlenstedt, S., Schovanek, P., Schussler, F., Schwanke, U., Sciacca, E., Scuderi, S., Sedlaczek, K., Seglar-Arroyo, M., Sergijenko, O., Seweryn, K., Shalchi, A., Shellard, R. C., Siejkowski, H., Sillanpää, A., Sinha, A., Sironi, G., Sliusar, V., Slowikowska, A., Sol, H., Specovius, A., Spencer, S., Spengler, G., Stamerra, A., Stanič, S., Stawarz, Ł., Stefanik, S., Stolarczyk, T., Straumann, U., Suomijarvi, T., Świerk, P., Szepieniec, T., Tagliaferri, G., Tajima, H., Tam, T., Tavecchio, F., Taylor, L., Tejedor, L. A., Temnikov, P., Terzic, T., Testa, V., Tibaldo, L., Peixoto, C. J. Todero, Tokanai, F., Tomankova, L., Tonev, D., Torres, D. F., Tosti, G., Tosti, L., Tothill, N., Toussenel, F., Tovmassian, G., Travnicek, P., Trichard, C., Umana, G., Vagelli, V., Valentino, M., Vallage, B., Vallania, P., Valore, L., Vandenbroucke, J., Varner, G. S., Vasileiadis, G., Vassiliev, V., Acosta, M. Vázquez, Vecchi, M., Vercellone, S., Vergani, S., Vettolani, G. P., Viana, A., Vigorito, C. F., Vink, J., Vitale, V., Voelk, H., Vollhardt, A., Vorobiov, S., Wagner, S. J., Walter, R., Werner, F., White, R., Wierzcholska, A., Will, M., Williams, D. A., Wischnewski, R., Yang, L., Yoshida, T., Yoshikoshi, T., Zacharias, M., Zampieri, L., Zavrtanik, M., Zavrtanik, D., Zdziarski, A. A., Zech, A., Zechlin, H., Zenin, A., Zhdanov, V. I., Zimmer, S., and Zorn, J.
Subjects: Astrophysics - Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
Abstract: The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) is the major next-generation observatory for ground-based very-high-energy gamma-ray astronomy. It will improve the sensitivity of current ground-based instruments by a factor of five to twenty, depending on the energy, greatly improving both their angular and energy resolutions over four decades in energy (from 20 GeV to 300 TeV). This achievement will be possible by using tens of imaging Cherenkov telescopes of three successive sizes. They will be arranged into two arrays, one per hemisphere, located on the La Palma island (Spain) and in Paranal (Chile). We present here the optimised and final telescope arrays for both CTA sites, as well as their foreseen performance, resulting from the analysis of three different large-scale Monte Carlo productions., Comment: 48 pages, 16 figures, accepted for publication in Astroparticle Physics
Published: 2019
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48. Periastron Observations of TeV Gamma-Ray Emission from a Binary System with a 50-year Period

Author: The VERITAS Collaboration, Abeysekara, A. U., Benbow, W., Bird, R., Brill, A., Brose, R., Buckley, J. H., Chromey, A. J., Daniel, M. K., Falcone, A., Finley, J. P., Fortson, L., Furniss, A., Gent, A., Gillanders, G. H., Hanna, D., Hassan, T., Hervet, O., Holder, J., Hughes, G., Humensky, T. B., Kaaret, P., Kar, P., Kertzman, M., Kieda, D., Krause, M., Krennrich, F., Kumar, S., Lang, M. J., Lin, T. T. Y., Maier, G., Moriarty, P., Mukherjee, R., O'Brien, S., Ong, R. A., Otte, A. N., Park, N., Petrashyk, A., Pohl, M., Pueschel, E., Quinn, J., Ragan, K., Richards, G. T., Roache, E., Sadeh, I., Santander, M., Schlenstedt, S., Sembroski, G. H., Sushch, I., Tyler, J., Vassiliev, V. V., Wakely, S. P., Weinstein, A., Wells, R. M., Wilcox, P., Wilhelm, A., Williams, D. A., Williamson, T. J, Zitzer, B., Collaboration, MAGIC, Acciari, V. A., Ansoldi, S., Antonelli, L. A., Engels, A. Arbet, Baack, D., Babić, A., Banerjee, B., de Almeida, U. Barres, Barrio, J. A., González, J. Becerra, Bednarek, W., Bernardini, E., Berti, A., Besenrieder, J., Bhattacharyya, W., Bigongiari, C., Biland, A., Blanch, O., Bonnoli, G., Busetto, G., Carosi, R., Ceribella, G., Cikota, S., Colak, S. M., Colin, P., Colombo, E., Contreras, J. L., Cortina, J., Covino, S., D'Elia, V., Da Vela, P., Dazzi, F., De Angelis, A., De Lotto, B., Delfino, M., Delgado, J., Di Pierro, F., Espiñera, E. Do Souto, Domínguez, A., Prester, D. Dominis, Dorner, D., Doro, M., Einecke, S., Elsaesser, D., Ramazani, V. Fallah, Fattorini, A., Fernández-Barral, A., Ferrara, G., Fidalgo, D., Foffano, L., Fonseca, M. V., Font, L., Fruck, C., Galindo, D., Gallozzi, S., López, R. J. García, Garczarczyk, M., Gasparyan, S., Gaug, M., Giammaria, P., Godinović, N., Guberman, D., Hadasch, D., Hahn, A., Herrera, J., Hoang, J., Hrupec, D., Inoue, S., Ishio, K., Iwamura, Y., Kubo, H., Kushida, J., Kuveždić, D., Lamastra, A., Lelas, D., Leone, F., Lindfors, E., Lombardi, S., Longo, F., López, M., López-Oramas, A., Fraga, B. Machado de Oliveira, Maggio, C., Majumdar, P., Makariev, M., Mallamaci, M., Maneva, G., Manganaro, M., Mannheim, K., Maraschi, L., Mariotti, M., Martínez, M., Masuda, S., Mazin, D., Minev, M., Miranda, J. M., Mirzoyan, R., Molina, E., Moralejo, A., Moreno, V., Moretti, E., Munar-Adrover, P., Neustroev, V., Niedzwiecki, A., Rosillo, M. Nievas, Nigro, C., Nilsson, K., Ninci, D., Nishijima, K., Noda, K., Nogués, L., Nöthe, M., Paiano, S., Palacio, J., Paneque, D., Paoletti, R., Paredes, J. M., Pedaletti, G., Peñil, P., Peresano, M., Persic, M., Moroni, P. G. Prada, Prandini, E., Puljak, I., Garcia, J. R., Rhode, W., Ribó, M., Rico, J., Righi, C., Rugliancich, A., Saha, L., Sahakyan, N., Saito, T., Satalecka, K., Schweizer, T., Sitarek, J., Šnidarić, I., Sobczynska, D., Somero, A., Stamerra, A., Strzys, M., Surić, T., Tavecchio, F., Temnikov, P., Terzić, T., Teshima, M., Torres-Albà, N., Tsujimoto, S., van Scherpenberg, J., Vanzo, G., Acosta, M. Vazquez, Vovk, I., Will, M., and Zarić, D.
Subjects: Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Abstract: We report on observations of the pulsar / Be star binary system PSR J2032+4127 / MT91 213 in the energy range between 100 GeV and 20 TeV with the VERITAS and MAGIC imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescope arrays. The binary orbit has a period of approximately 50 years, with the most recent periastron occurring on 2017 November 13. Our observations span from 18 months prior to periastron to one month after. A new, point-like, gamma-ray source is detected, coincident with the location of PSR J2032+4127 / MT91 213. The gamma-ray light curve and spectrum are well-characterized over the periastron passage. The flux is variable over at least an order of magnitude, peaking at periastron, thus providing a firm association of the TeV source with the pulsar / Be star system. Observations prior to periastron show a cutoff in the spectrum at an energy around 0.5 TeV. This result adds a new member to the small population of known TeV binaries, and it identifies only the second source of this class in which the nature and properties of the compact object are firmly established. We compare the gamma-ray results with the light curve measured with the X-ray Telescope (XRT) on board the Neil Gehrels \textit{Swift} Observatory and with the predictions of recent theoretical models of the system. We conclude that significant revision of the models is required to explain the details of the emission we have observed, and we discuss the relationship between the binary system and the overlapping steady extended source, TeV J2032+4130., Comment: 12 pages, 3 figures, 1 table. Accepted for publication in ApJL
Published: 2018
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49. VERITAS and Fermi-LAT observations of new HAWC sources

Author: VERITAS Collaboration, Abeysekara, A. U., Archer, A., Benbow, W., Bird, R., Brose, R., Buchovecky, M., Buckley, J. H., Bugaev, V., Chromey, A. J., Connolly, M. P., Cui, W., Daniel, M. K., Falcone, A., Feng, Q., Finley, J. P., Fortson, L., Furniss, A., Hutten, M., Hanna, D., Hervet, O., Holder, J., Hughes, G., Humensky, T. B., Johnson, C. A., Kaaret, P., Kar, P., Kertzman, M., Kieda, D., Krause, M., Krennrich, F., Kumar, S., Lang, M. J., Lin, T. T. Y., McArthur, S., Moriarty, P., Mukherjee, R., O'Brien, S., Ong, R. A., Otte, A. N., Park, N., Petrashyk, A., Pohl, M., Pueschel, E., Quinn, J., Ragan, K., Reynolds, P. T., Richards, G. T., Roache, E., Rulten, C., Sadeh, I., Santander, M., Sembroski, G. H., Shahinyan, K., Sushch, I., Tyler, J., Wakely, S. P., Weinstein, A., Wells, R. M., Wilcox, P., Wilhelm, A., Williams, D. A., Williamson, T. J., Zitzer, B., Collaboration, Fermi-LAT, Abdollahi, S., Ajello, M., Baldini, L., Barbiellini, G., Bastieri, D., Bellazzini, R., Berenji, B., Bissaldi, E., Blandford, R. D., Bonino, R., Bottacini, E., Brandt, T. J., Bruel, P., Buehler, R., Cameron, R. A., Caputo, R., Caraveo, P. A., Castro, D., Cavazzuti, E., Charles, E., Chiaro, G., Ciprini, S., Cohen-Tanugi, J., Costantin, D., Cutini, S., D'Ammando, F., de Palma, F., Di Lalla, N., Di Mauro, M., Di Venere, L., Dominguez, A., Favuzzi, C., Fegan, S. J., Franckowiak, A., Fukazawa, Y., Funk, S., Fusco, P., Gargano, F., Gasparrini, D., Giglietto, N., Giordano, F., Giroletti, M., Green, D., Grenier, I. A., Guillemot, L., Guiriec, S., Hays, E., Hewitt, J. W., Horan, D., Johannesson, G., Kensei, S., Kuss, M., Larsson, S., Latronico, L., Lemoine-Goumard, M., Li, J., Longo, F., Loparco, F., Lovellette, M. N., Lubrano, P., Magill, J. D., Maldera, S., Mazziotta, M. N., McEnery, J. E., Michelson, P. F., Mitthumsiri, W., Mizuno, T., Monzani, M. E., Morselli, A., Moskalenko, I. V., Negro, M., Nuss, E., Ojha, R., Omodei, N., Orienti, M., Orlando, E., Palatiello, M., Paliya, V. S., Paneque, D., Perkins, J. S., Persic, M., Pesce-Rollins, M., Petrosian, V., Piron, F., Porter, T. A., Principe, G., Raino, S., Rando, R., Rani, B., Razzano, M., Razzaque, S., Reimer, A., Reimer, O., Reposeur, T., Sgro, C., Siskind, E. J., Spandre, G., Spinelli, P., Suson, D. J., Tajima, H., Thayer, J. B., Thompson, D. J., Torres, D. F., Tosti, G., Troja, E., Valverde, J., Vianello, G., Vogel, M., Wood, K., Yassine, M., Collaboration, HAWC, Alfaro, R., Alvarez, C., Alvarez, J. D., Arceo, R., Arteaga-Velazquez, J. C., Rojas, D. Avila, Solares, H. A. Ayala, Becerril, A., Belmont-Moreno, E., BenZvi, S. Y., Bernal, A., Braun, J., Brisbois, C., Caballero-Mora, K. S., Capistran, T., Carraminana, A., Casanova, S., Castillo, M., Cotti, U., Cotzomi, J., de Leon, S. Coutino, De Leon, C., De la Fuente, E., Dichiara, S., Dingus, B. L., DuVernois, M. A., Diaz-Velez, J. C., Engel, K., Enriquez-Rivera, O., Fiorino, D. W., Fleischhack, H., Fraija, N., Garcia-Gonzalez, J. A., Garfias, F., Munoz, A. Gonzalez, Gonzalez, M. M., Goodman, J. A., Hampel-Arias, Z., Harding, J. P., Hernandez, S., Hernandez-Almada, A., Hona, B., Hueyotl-Zahuantitla, F., Hui, C. M., Huntemeyer, P., Iriarte, A., Jardin-Blicq, A., Joshi, V., Kaufmann, S., Lara, A., Lauer, R. J., Lee, W. H., Lennarz, D., Vargas, H. Leon, Linnemann, J. T., Longinotti, A. L., Luis-Raya, G., Luna-Garcia, R., Lopez-Coto, R., Malone, K., Marinelli, S. S., Martinez, O., Martinez-Castellanos, I., Martinez-Castro, J., Martinez-Huerta, H., Matthews, J. A., Miranda-Romagnoli, P., Moreno, E., Mostafa, M., Nayerhoda, A., Nellen, L., Newbold, M., Nisa, M. U., Noriega-Papaqui, R., Pelayo, R., Pretz, J., Perez-Perez, E. G., Ren, Z., Rho, C. D., Riviere, C., Rosa-Gonzalez, D., Rosenberg, M., Ruiz-Velasco, E., Salazar, H., Greus, F. Salesa, Sandoval, A., Schneider, M., Arroyo, M. Seglar, Sinnis, G., Smith, A. J., Springer, R. W., Surajbali, P., Taboada, I., Tibolla, O., Tollefson, K., Torres, I., Ukwatta, T. N., Villasenor, L., Weisgarber, T., Westerhoff, S., Wisher, I. G., Wood, J., Yapici, T., Yodh, G., Zepeda, A., and Zhou, H.
Subjects: Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Abstract: The HAWC (High Altitude Water Cherenkov) collaboration recently published their 2HWC catalog, listing 39 very high energy (VHE; >100~GeV) gamma-ray sources based on 507 days of observation. Among these, there are nineteen sources that are not associated with previously known TeV sources. We have studied fourteen of these sources without known counterparts with VERITAS and Fermi-LAT. VERITAS detected weak gamma-ray emission in the 1~TeV-30~TeV band in the region of DA 495, a pulsar wind nebula coinciding with 2HWC J1953+294, confirming the discovery of the source by HAWC. We did not find any counterpart for the selected fourteen new HAWC sources from our analysis of Fermi-LAT data for energies higher than 10 GeV. During the search, we detected GeV gamma-ray emission coincident with a known TeV pulsar wind nebula, SNR G54.1+0.3 (VER J1930+188), and a 2HWC source, 2HWC J1930+188. The fluxes for isolated, steady sources in the 2HWC catalog are generally in good agreement with those measured by imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes. However, the VERITAS fluxes for SNR G54.1+0.3, DA 495, and TeV J2032+4130 are lower than those measured by HAWC and several new HAWC sources are not detected by VERITAS. This is likely due to a change in spectral shape, source extension, or the influence of diffuse emission in the source region., Comment: Accepted for publication in the ApJ, Corresponding author: Nahee Park (VERITAS Collaboration), John W. Hewitt (Fermi-LAT Collaboration), Ignacio Taboada (HAWC Collaboration), 30 pages, 12 figures
Published: 2018
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50. Measurement of Cosmic-ray Electrons at TeV Energies by VERITAS

Author: VERITAS Collaboration, Archer, A., Benbow, W., Bird, R., Brose, R., Buchovecky, M., Buckley, J. H., Bugaev, V., Connolly, M. P., Cui, W., Feng, Q., Finley, J. P., Fortson, L., Furniss, A., Gillanders, G., Hütten, M., Hanna, D., Hervet, O., Holder, J., Hughes, G., Humensky, T. B., Johnson, C. A., Kaaret, P., Kar, P., Kelley-Hoskins, N., Kertzman, M., Kieda, D., Krause, M., Krennrich, F., Kumar, S., Lang, M. J., Lin, T. T. Y., Maier, G., McArthur, S., Moriarty, P., Mukherjee, R., O'Brien, S., Ong, R. A., Otte, A. N., Petrashyk, A., Pohl, M., Pueschel, E., Quinn, J., Ragan, K., Reynolds, P. T., Richards, G. T., Roache, E., Rulten, C., Sadeh, I., Santander, M., Sembroski, G. H., Staszak, D., Sushch, I., Tyler, J., Wakely, S. P., Wells, R. M., Wilcox, P., Wilhelm, A., Williams, D. A., Williamson, T. J, and Zitzer, B.
Subjects: Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Abstract: Cosmic-ray electrons and positrons (CREs) at GeV-TeV energies are a unique probe of our local Galactic neighborhood. CREs lose energy rapidly via synchrotron radiation and inverse-Compton scattering processes while propagating within the Galaxy and these losses limit their propagation distance. For electrons with TeV energies, the limit is on the order of a kiloparsec. Within that distance there are only a few known astrophysical objects capable of accelerating electrons to such high energies. It is also possible that the CREs are the products of the annihilation or decay of heavy dark matter (DM) particles. VERITAS, an array of imaging air Cherenkov telescopes in southern Arizona, USA, is primarily utilized for gamma-ray astronomy, but also simultaneously collects CREs during all observations. We describe our methods of identifying CREs in VERITAS data and present an energy spectrum, extending from 300 GeV to 5 TeV, obtained from approximately 300 hours of observations. A single power-law fit is ruled out in VERITAS data. We find that the spectrum of CREs is consistent with a broken power law, with a break energy at 710 $\pm$ 40$_{stat}$ $\pm$ 140$_{syst}$ GeV., Comment: 17 pages, 2 figures, accepted for publication in PRD
Published: 2018
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