VERITAS Observations of the Supernova Remnant Cas A
Written by Tulun Ergin for the VERITAS Collaboration   
Wednesday, 02 April 2008

Bulletin of the AAS (BAAS), volume 40, number 1, 2008 (31.08)

In 1999 HEGRA detected TeV gamma-ray emission from Cas A, the youngest supernova remnant in our galaxy. This detection showed Cas A to be a site of acceleration for cosmic-rays, leptons or hadrons. Cas A has been observed during Fall 2007 for about 20 hours with VERITAS, an array of four imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes located at the Whipple Observatory at Mt. Hopkins in southern Arizona. VERITAS observes a point-like gamma-ray excess at the location of Cas A with a statistical significance of about 8 sigma. Cas A is found to have a Crab-like gamma-ray spectrum with an integrated flux above 1 TeV of 3% of the Crab Nebula's flux.

Last Updated ( Monday, 14 April 2008 )