MAGIC upper limits on the GRB 090102 afterglow
Abstract
Indications of a GeV component in the emission from GRBs are known since the EGRET observations during the 1990's and they have been confirmed by the data of the Fermi satellite. These results have, however, shown that our understanding of GRB physics is still unsatisfactory. The new generation of Cherenkov observatories and in particular the MAGIC telescope, allow for the first time the possibility to extend the measurement of GRBs from several tens up to hundreds of GeV energy range. Both leptonic and hadronic processes have been suggested to explain the possible GeV/TeV counterpart of GRBs. Observations with ground-based telescopes of very high energy photons (E>30 GeV) from these sources are going to play a key role in discriminating among the different proposed emission mechanisms, which are barely distinguishable at lower energies. MAGIC telescope observations of the GRB 090102 (z=1.547) field and Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) data in the same time interval are analysed to derive upper limits of the GeV/TeV emission. We compare these results to the expected emissions evaluated for different processes in the framework of a relativistic blast wave model for the afterglow. Simultaneous upper limits with Fermi and a Cherenkov telescope have been derived for this GRB observation. The results we obtained are compatible with the expected emission although the difficulties in predicting the HE and VHE emission for the afterglow of this event makes it difficult to draw firmer conclusions. Nonetheless, MAGIC sensitivity in the energy range of overlap with space-based instruments (above about 40 GeV) is about one order of magnitude better with respect to Fermi. This makes evident the constraining power of ground-based observations and shows that the MAGIC telescope has reached the required performance to make possible GRB multiwavelength studies in the very high energy range.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1311.3637,
title = {MAGIC upper limits on the GRB 090102 afterglow},
author = {MAGIC Collaboration and J. Aleksić and S. Ansoldi and L. A. Antonelli and P. Antoranz and A. Babic and P. Bangale and U. Barres de Almeida and J. A. Barrio and J. Becerra González and W. Bednarek and K. Berger and E. Bernardini and A. Biland and O. Blanch and R. K. Bock and S. Bonnefoy and G. Bonnoli and F. Borracci and T. Bretz and E. Carmona and A. Carosi and D. Carreto Fidalgo and P. Colin and E. Colombo and J. L. Contreras and J. Cortina and S. Covino and P. Da Vela and F. Dazzi and A. De Angelis and G. De Caneva and B. De Lotto and C. Delgado Mendez and M. Doert and A. Domínguez and D. Dominis Prester and D. Dorner and M. Doro and S. Einecke and D. Eisenacher and D. Elsaesser and E. Farina and D. Ferenc and M. V. Fonseca and L. Font and K. Frantzen and C. Fruck and R. J. García López and M. Garczarczyk and D. Garrido Terrats and M. Gaug and G. Giavitto and N. Godinović and A. González Muñoz and S. R. Gozzini and D. Hadasch and M. Hayashida and A. Herrero and D. Hildebrand and J. Hose and D. Hrupec and W. Idec and V. Kadenius and H. Kellermann and M. L. Knoetig and K. Kodani and Y. Konno and J. Krause and H. Kubo and J. Kushida and A. La Barbera and D. Lelas and N. Lewandowska and E. Lindfors and S. Lombardi and M. López and R. López-Coto and A. López-Oramas and E. Lorenz and I. Lozano and M. Makariev and K. Mallot and G. Maneva and N. Mankuzhiyil and K. Mannheim and L. Maraschi and B. Marcote and M. Mariotti and M. Martínez and D. Mazin and U. Menzel and M. Meucci and J. M. Miranda and R. Mirzoyan and A. Moralejo and P. Munar-Adrover and D. Nakajima and A. Niedzwiecki and K. Nilsson and K. Nishijima and N. Nowak and R. Orito and A. Overkemping and S. Paiano and M. Palatiello and D. Paneque and R. Paoletti and J. M. Paredes and X. Paredes-Fortuny and S. Partini and M. Persic and F. Prada and P. G. Prada Moroni and E. Prandini and S. Preziuso and I. Puljak and R. Reinthal and W. Rhode and M. Ribó and J. Rico and J. Rodriguez Garcia and S. Rügamer and A. Saggion and T. Saito and K. Saito and M. Salvati and K. Satalecka and V. Scalzotto and V. Scapin and C. Schultz and T. Schweizer and S. N. Shore and A. Sillanpää and J. Sitarek and I. Snidaric and D. Sobczynska and F. Spanier and V. Stamatescu and A. Stamerra and T. Steinbring and J. Storz and S. Sun and T. Surić and L. Takalo and H. Takami and F. Tavecchio and P. Temnikov and T. Terzić and D. Tescaro and M. Teshima and J. Thaele and O. Tibolla and D. F. Torres and T. Toyama and A. Treves and P. Vogler and R. M. Wagner and F. Zandanel and R. Zanin and A. Bouvier and M. Hayashida and H. Tajima and F. Longo},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1311.3637},
year = {2019}
}
Comments
8 pages, 5 figures, 2 tables. Submitted to MNRAS