Discovery of localized regions of excess 10-TeV cosmic rays

  • A. A. Abdo
  • , B. Allen
  • , T. Aune
  • , D. Berley
  • , E. Blaufuss
  • , S. Casanova
  • , C. Chen
  • , B. L. Dingus
  • , R. W. Ellsworth
  • , L. Fleysher
  • , R. Fleysher
  • , M. M. Gonzalez
  • , J. A. Goodman
  • , C. M. Hoffman
  • , P. H. Hüntemeyer
  • , B. E. Kolterman
  • , C. P. Lansdell
  • , J. T. Linnemann
  • , J. E. McEnery
  • , A. I. Mincer
  • P. Nemethy, D. Noyes, J. Pretz, J. M. Ryan, P. M.Saz Parkinson, A. Shoup, G. Sinnis, A. J. Smith, G. W. Sullivan, V. Vasileiou, G. P. Walker, D. A. Williams, G. B. Yodh

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

221 Scopus citations

Abstract

The 7 year data set of the Milagro TeV observatory contains 2.2×1011 events of which most are due to hadronic cosmic rays. These data are searched for evidence of intermediate scale structure. Excess emission on angular scales of ∼10° has been found in two localized regions of unknown origin with greater than 12σ significance. Both regions are inconsistent with pure gamma-ray emission with high confidence. One of the regions has a different energy spectrum than the isotropic cosmic-ray flux at a level of 4.6σ, and it is consistent with hard spectrum protons with an exponential cutoff, with the most significant excess at ∼10TeV. Potential causes of these excesses are explored, but no compelling explanations are found.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number221101
JournalPhysical review letters
Volume101
Issue number22
DOIs
StatePublished - Nov 24 2008

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • General Physics and Astronomy

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