MAGIC observation of the GRB 080430 afterglow

Aleksić, J.; Anderhub, H.; Antonelli, L. A.; Antoranz, P.; Backes, M.; Baixeras, C.; Balestra, S.; Barrio, J. A.; Bastieri, D.; Becerra-González, J.; Becker, J. K.; Bednarek, W.; Berdyugin, A.; Berger, K.; Bernardini, E.; Biland, A.; Bock, R. K.; Bonnoli, G.; Bordas, P.; Borla Tridon, D.; Bosch-Ramon, V.; Bose, D.; Braun, I.; Bretz, T.; Britzger, D.; Camara, M.; Carmona, E.; Carosi, A.; Colin, P.; Commichau, S.; Contreras, J. L.; Cortina, J.; Costado, M. T.; Covino, S.; Dazzi, F.; de Angelis, A.; de Cea Del Pozo, E.; de Los Reyes, R.; de Lotto, B.; de Maria, M.; de Sabata, F.; Delgado-Méndez, C.; Doert, M.; Domínguez, A.; Dominis Prester, D.; Dorner, D.; Doro, M.; Elsaesser, D.; Errando, M.; Ferenc, D.; Fernández, E.; Firpo, R.; Fonseca, M. V.; Font, L.; Galante, N.; García-López, R. J.; Garczarczyk, M.; Gaug, M.; Godinovic, N.; Goebel, F.; Hadasch, D.; Herrero, A.; Hildebrand, D.; Höhne-Mönch, D.; Hose, J.; Hrupec, D.; Hsu, C. C.; Jogler, T.; Klepser, S.; Krähenbühl, T.; Kranich, D.; La Barbera, A.; Laille, A.; Leonardo, E.; Lindfors, E.; Lombardi, S.; Longo, F.; López, M.; Lorenz, E.; Majumdar, P.; Maneva, G.; Mankuzhiyil, N.; Mannheim, K.; Maraschi, L.; Mariotti, M.; Martínez, M.; Mazin, D.; Meucci, M.; Miranda, J. M.; Mirzoyan, R.; Miyamoto, H.; Moldón, J.; Moles, M.; Moralejo, A.; Nieto, D.; Nilsson, K.; Ninkovic, J.; Orito, R.; Oya, I.; Paoletti, R. et al.
Referencia bibliográfica

Astronomy and Astrophysics, Volume 517, id.A5

Fecha de publicación:
7
2010
Número de autores
154
Número de autores del IAC
6
Número de citas
17
Número de citas referidas
13
Descripción
Context. Gamma-ray bursts are cosmological sources emitting radiation from the gamma-rays to the radio band. Substantial observational efforts have been devoted to the study of gamma-ray bursts during the prompt phase, i.e. the initial burst of high-energy radiation, and during the long-lasting afterglows. In spite of many successes in interpreting these phenomena, there are still several open key questions about the fundamental emission processes, their energetics and the environment. Aims: Independently of specific gamma-ray burst theoretical recipes, spectra in the GeV/TeV range are predicted to be remarkably simple, being satisfactorily modeled with power-laws, and therefore offer a very valuable tool to probe the extragalactic background light distribution. Furthermore, the simple detection of a component at very-high energies, i.e. at ~100 GeV, would solve the ambiguity about the importance of various possible emission processes, which provide barely distinguishable scenarios at lower energies. Methods: We used the results of the MAGIC telescope observation of the moderate resdhift (z ~ 0.76) GRB 080430 at energies above about 80 GeV, to evaluate the perspective for late-afterglow observations with ground based GeV/TeV telescopes. Results: We obtained an upper limit of F95% CL = 5.5 × 10-11 erg cm-2 s-1 for the very-high energy emission of GRB 080430, which cannot set further constraints on the theoretical scenarios proposed for this object also due to the difficulties in modeling the low-energy afterglow. Nonetheless, our observations show that Cherenkov telescopes have already reached the required sensitivity to detect the GeV/TeV emission of GRBs at moderate redshift (z ≲ 0.8), provided the observations are carried out at early times, close to the onset of their afterglow phase.
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Astrofísica de Partículas
El Grupo de Astrofísica de Partículas del IAC participa activamente en tres grandes colaboraciones internacionales de astrofísica de muy altas energías: AMS (Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer), los telescopios de radiación Cherenkov MAGIC I y II, y el Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA). AMS es un detector de partículas diseñado para operar en el espacio, a
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