Constraints on Very High Energy Emission from GRB 130427A
Abstract
Prompt emission from the very fluent and nearby (z = 0.34) gamma-ray burst GRB 130427A was detected by several orbiting telescopes and by ground-based, wide-field-of-view optical transient monitors. Apart from the intensity and proximity of this GRB, it is exceptional due to the extremely long-lived high-energy (100 MeV to 100 GeV) gamma-ray emission, which was detected by the Large Area Telescope on the Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope for ~70 ks after the initial burst. The persistent, hard-spectrum, high-energy emission suggests that the highest-energy gamma rays may have been produced via synchrotron self-Compton processes though there is also evidence that the high-energy emission may instead be an extension of the synchrotron spectrum. VERITAS, a ground-based imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescope array, began follow-up observations of GRB 130427A ~71 ks (~20 hr) after the onset of the burst. The GRB was not detected with VERITAS; however, the high elevation of the observations, coupled with the low redshift of the GRB, make VERITAS a very sensitive probe of the emission from GRB 130427A for E > 100 GeV. The non-detection and consequent upper limit derived place constraints on the synchrotron self-Compton model of high-energy gamma-ray emission from this burst.
- Publication:
-
The Astrophysical Journal
- Pub Date:
- November 2014
- DOI:
- 10.1088/2041-8205/795/1/L3
- arXiv:
- arXiv:1410.5367
- Bibcode:
- 2014ApJ...795L...3A
- Keywords:
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- gamma-ray burst: individual: GRB 130427A;
- Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
- E-Print:
- 22 pages, 4 figures, 1 table