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    Measurement of cosmic-ray electrons at TeV energies by VERITAS

    A. Archer1, W. Benbow2, R. Bird3, R. Brose4,5, M. Buchovecky3, J. H. Buckley6, V. Bugaev6, M. P. Connolly7, W. Cui1,8 et al. (The VERITAS Collaboration)

    W. Cui1,8, M. K. Daniel2, Q. Feng9, J. P. Finley1, L. Fortson10, A. Furniss11, G. Gillanders7, M. Hütten5, D. Hanna9, O. Hervet12, J. Holder13, G. Hughes2, T. B. Humensky14, C. A. Johnson12, P. Kaaret15, P. Kar16, N. Kelley-Hoskins5, M. Kertzman17, D. Kieda16, M. Krause5, F. Krennrich18, S. Kumar13, M. J. Lang7, T. T. Y. Lin9, G. Maier5, S. McArthur1, P. Moriarty7, R. Mukherjee19, S. O’Brien20, R. A. Ong21, A. N. Otte22, A. Petrashyk14, M. Pohl4,5, E. Pueschel5, J. Quinn20, K. Ragan9, P. T. Reynolds23, G. T. Richards22, E. Roache2, C. Rulten10, I. Sadeh5, M. Santander24, G. H. Sembroski1, D. Staszak25,*, I. Sushch5, S. P. Wakely25, R. M. Wells18, P. Wilcox15, A. Wilhelm4,5, D. A. Williams12, T. J. Williamson13, and B. Zitzer9,† (The VERITAS Collaboration)

    • 1Department of Physics and Astronomy, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana 47907, USA
    • 2Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Amado, Arizona 85645, USA
    • 3Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA
    • 4Institute of Physics and Astronomy, University of Potsdam, 14476 Potsdam-Golm, Germany
    • 5DESY, Platanenallee 6, 15738 Zeuthen, Germany
    • 6Department of Physics, Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri 63130, USA
    • 7School of Physics, National University of Ireland Galway, University Road, Galway, Ireland
    • 8Department of Physics and Center for Astrophysics, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
    • 9Physics Department, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec H3A 2T8, Canada
    • 10School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455, USA
    • 11Department of Physics, California State University—East Bay, Hayward, California 94542, USA
    • 12Santa Cruz Institute for Particle Physics and Department of Physics, University of California, Santa Cruz, California 95064, USA
    • 13Department of Physics and Astronomy and the Bartol Research Institute, University of Delaware, Newark, Delaware 19716, USA
    • 14Physics Department, Columbia University, New York, New York 10027, USA
    • 15Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Iowa, Van Allen Hall, Iowa City, Iowa 52242, USA
    • 16Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah 84112, USA
    • 17Department of Physics and Astronomy, DePauw University, Greencastle, Indiana 46135-0037, USA
    • 18Department of Physics and Astronomy, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa 50011, USA
    • 19Department of Physics and Astronomy, Barnard College, Columbia University, New York City, New York 10027, USA
    • 20School of Physics, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland
    • 21Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA
    • 22School of Physics and Center for Relativistic Astrophysics, Georgia Institute of Technology, 837 State Street NW, Atlanta, Georgia 30332-0430, USA
    • 23Department of Physical Sciences, Cork Institute of Technology, Bishopstown, Cork, Ireland
    • 24Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, Alabama 35487, USA
    • 25Enrico Fermi Institute, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60637, USA
    • *d.staszak@gmail.com
    • bzitzer@physics.mcgill.ca

    Phys. Rev. D 98, 062004 – Published 20 September, 2018

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.98.062004

    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, 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±40stat±140systGeV.

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