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

HE PIERRE AUGER COLLABORATION (P.HANSEN ES MIEMBRO DE LA COLABORACION AUGER)

The Astrophysical Journal Letters

The American Astronomical Society.

Año: 2017

2041-8205

Simultaneous measurements of air showers with the fluorescence and surface detectors of the Pierre AugerObservatory allow a sensitive search for EeV photon point sources. Several Galactic and extragalactic candidateobjects are grouped in classes to reduce the statistical penalty of many trials from that of a blind search and areanalyzed for a significant excess above the background expectation. The presented search does not find anyevidence 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 ofEeV proton emission models from non-transient Galactic and nearby extragalactic sources, as illustrated for theparticular case of the Galactic center region.