Abstract
Milagro is a water Cerenkov extensive air shower array that continuously monitors the entire overhead sky in the TeV energy band. The results from an analysis of ∼3 yr of data (2000 December-2003 November) are presented. The data have been searched for steady point sources of TeV gamma rays between declinations of 1°.1 and 80°. Two sources are detected, the Crab Nebula and the active galaxy Mrk 421. For the remainder of the northern hemisphere, we set 95% confidence level (CL) upper limits between 275 and 600 mcrab (4.8 × 10-12 to 10.5 × 10-12 cm-2 s -1) above 1 TeV for source declinations between 5° and 70°. Since the sensitivity of Milagro depends on the spectrum of the source at the top of the atmosphere, the dependence of the limits on the spectrum of a candidate source is presented. Because high-energy gamma rays from extragalactic sources are absorbed by interactions with the extragalactic background light, the dependence of the flux limits on the redshift of a candidate source are given. The upper limits presented here are over an order of magnitude more stringent than previously published limits from TeV gamma-ray all-sky surveys.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 680-685 |
Number of pages | 6 |
Journal | Astrophysical Journal |
Volume | 608 |
Issue number | 2 I |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Jun 20 2004 |
Keywords
- Galaxies: active
- Gamma rays: observations
- Surveys
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Astronomy and Astrophysics
- Space and Planetary Science