2005/12/19 by J. Albert, MAGIC collaboration, E. Aliu +97 · 3 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena #Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena #Gamma-ray bursts and supernovae #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1086/501164
published as Astrophys.J.638:L101-L104,2006 · ApJL submitted
arxiv created 2005/12/19 · openalex publication_date 2006/01/25 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/31
Recently, the Galactic center has been reported to be a source of very high energy (VHE) γ-rays by the CANGAROO, VERITAS, and HESS experiments. The energy spectra as measured by these experiments show substantial differences. In this Letter we present MAGIC observations of the Galactic center, resulting in the detection of a differential γ-ray flux consistent with a steady, hard-slope power law, described as dN γ /( dA dt dE ) = (2.9 ± 0.6) × 10 -12 ( E /TeV) -2.2±0.2 cm -2 s -1 TeV -1 . The γ-ray source is centered at (R.A., decl.) = (17 h 45 m 20 s , -29°2'). This result confirms the previous measurements by the HESS experiment and indicates a steady source of TeV γ-rays. We briefly describe the observational technique used and the procedure implemented for the data analysis, and we discuss the results in the perspective of different models proposed for the acceleration of the VHE γ-rays.