A Targeted Search for Point Sources of EeV Photons with the Pierre Auger Observatory

THE PIERRE AUGER COLLABORATION: ROVERO, A.C.

ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL

IOP PUBLISHING LTD

Año: 2017 vol. 837

0004-637X

Simultaneous measurements of air showers with the fluorescence and surface detectors of the Pierre Auger Observatory allow a sensitive search for EeV photon point sources. Several Galactic and extragalactic candidate objects are grouped in classes to reduce the statistical penalty of many trials from that of a blind search and are analyzed for a significant excess above the background expectation. The presented search does not find any evidence for photon emission at candidate sources, and combined p-values for every class are reported. Particle andenergy flux upper limits are given for selected candidate sources. These limits significantly constrain predictions of EeV proton emission models from non-transient Galactic and nearby extragalactic sources, as illustrated for the particular case of the Galactic center region.