Six years of VERITAS observations of the Crab Nebula
The Crab Nebula is the brightest source in the very-high-energy (VHE) gamma-ray sky and one of the best studied non-thermal objects. The dominant VHE emission mechanism is believed to be inverse Compton scattering of low energy photons on relativistic electrons. While it is unclear how the electrons...
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Zusammenfassung: | The Crab Nebula is the brightest source in the very-high-energy (VHE)
gamma-ray sky and one of the best studied non-thermal objects. The dominant VHE
emission mechanism is believed to be inverse Compton scattering of low energy
photons on relativistic electrons. While it is unclear how the electrons in the
nebula are accelerated to energies of $10^{16}$ eV, it is general consensus
that the ultimate source of energy is the Crab pulsar at the center of the
nebula. Studying VHE gamma-ray emission provides valuable insight into the
emission mechanisms and ultimately helps to understand the remaining mysteries
of the Crab, for example, how the Poynting dominated energy flow is converted
into a particle dominated flow of energy. We report on the results of six years
of Crab observations with VERITAS comprising 115 hours of data taken between
2007 and 2013. VERITAS is an array of four 12-meter imaging air Cherenkov
telescopes located in southern Arizona. We report on the energy spectrum, light
curve, and a study of the VHE extension of the Crab Nebula. |
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DOI: | 10.48550/arxiv.1508.06442 |