Search for Sources of High-Energy Neutrons with Four Years of Data from the IceTop Detector
The astrophysical journal 830(2), 129 (2016). doi:10.3847/0004-637X/830/2/129 : IceTop is an air-shower array located on the Antarctic ice sheet at the geographic South Pole. IceTop can detect an astrophysical flux of neutrons from Galactic sources as an excess of cosmic-ray air showers arriving fro...
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Format: | Report |
Language: | English |
Published: |
Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron, DESY, Hamburg
2016
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Subjects: | |
Online Access: | https://dx.doi.org/10.3204/pubdb-2016-06455 http://bib-pubdb1.desy.de/record/316261 |
Summary: | The astrophysical journal 830(2), 129 (2016). doi:10.3847/0004-637X/830/2/129 : IceTop is an air-shower array located on the Antarctic ice sheet at the geographic South Pole. IceTop can detect an astrophysical flux of neutrons from Galactic sources as an excess of cosmic-ray air showers arriving from the source direction. Neutrons are undeflected by the Galactic magnetic field and can typically travel 10 (E/PeV) pc before decay. Two searches are performed using 4 yr of the IceTop data set to look for a statistically significant excess of events with energies above 10 PeV (10$^{16}$ eV) arriving within a small solid angle. The all-sky search method covers from −90° to approximately −50° in declination. No significant excess is found. A targeted search is also performed, looking for significant correlation with candidate sources in different target sets. This search uses a higher-energy cut (100 PeV) since most target objects lie beyond 1 kpc. The target sets include pulsars with confirmed TeV energy photon fluxes and high-mass X-ray binaries. No significant correlation is found for any target set. Flux upper limits are determined for both searches, which can constrain Galactic neutron sources and production scenarios. : Published by Univ.11032, Chicago, Ill. [u.a.] |
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