A Search for Pulsations from Geminga Above 100 GeV with VERITAS

Abstract

We present the results of 71.6 hours of observations of the Geminga pulsar (PSR J0633+1746) with the VERITAS very-high-energy gamma-ray telescope array. Data taken with VERITAS between November 2007 and February 2013 were phase-folded using a Geminga pulsar timing solution derived from data recorded by the XMM-\emph{Newton} and \emph{Fermi}-LAT space telescopes. No significant pulsed emission above 100 GeV is observed, and we report upper limits at the 95% confidence level on the integral flux above 135 GeV (spectral analysis threshold) of 4.0$\times 10^{-13}$ s${}^{-1}$ cm${}^{-2}$ and 1.7$\times 10^{-13}$ s${}^{-1}$ cm${}^{-2}$ for the two principal peaks in the emission profile. These upper limits, placed in context with phase-resolved spectral energy distributions determined from five years of data from the \emph{Fermi}-LAT, constrain possible hardening of the Geminga pulsar emission spectra above $\sim$50 GeV.

7 pages, 2 figures, 2 tables. Accepted for publication in ApJ

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Cited by in corpus (6)

• Detection of the Geminga pulsar with MAGIC hints at a power-law tail emission beyond 15 GeV
• A stacked analysis of 115 pulsars observed by the Fermi LAT
• Modeling of the gamma-ray pulsed spectra of Geminga, Crab, and Vela with synchro-curvature radiation
• Prospects for the detection of high-energy (E>25 GeV) Fermi pulsars with the Cherenkov Telescope Array
• A Search for Pulsed Very High-Energy Gamma Rays from Thirteen Young Pulsars in Archival VERITAS Data
• On Integral Upper Limits Assuming Power Law Spectra and the Sensitivity in High-Energy Astronomy