Abstracts of Interest

Selected by: Gary Hill


Abstract: 2207.10678
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Title:Massive black hole binaries in LISA: multimessenger prospects and electromagnetic counterparts

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Abstract: In the next decade, the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) will detect the coalescence of massive black hole binaries (MBHBs) in the range $[10^4, 10^8] \, \rm M_{\odot}$, up to $z\sim10$. Their gravitational wave (GW) signal is expected to be accompanied by an electromagnetic counterpart (EMcp), generated by the gas accreting on the binary or on the remnant BH. In this work, we present the number and characteristics (such as redshift and mass distribution, apparent magnitudes or fluxes) of EMcps detectable jointly by LISA and some representative EM telescopes. We combine state-of-the-art astrophysical models for the galaxies formation and evolution to build the MBHBs catalogues, with Bayesian tools to estimate the binary sky position uncertainty from the GW signal. Exploiting additional information from the astrophysical models, such as the amount of accreted gas and the BH spins, we evaluate the expected EM emission in the soft X-ray, optical and radio bands. Overall, we predict between 7 and 21 EMcps in 4 yrs of joint observations by LISA and the considered EM facilities, depending on the astrophysical model. We also explore the impact of the hydrogen and dust obscuration of the optical and X-ray emissions, as well as of the collimation of the radio emission: these effects reduce the number to EMcps to 2 or 3, depending on the astrophysical model, again in 4 yrs of observations. Most of the EMcps are characterised by faint EM emission, challenging the observational capabilities of future telescopes. Finally, we also find that systems with multi-modal sky position posterior distributions represent only a minority of cases and do not affect significantly the number of EMcps.

Comments: 28 pages, 18 figures. Submitted to PRD


Abstract: 2207.10691
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Title:The Curious Case of Near-Identical Cosmic-Ray Accelerators

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Abstract: A commonly-used, simplifying assumption when modeling the sources of ultra-high energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) is that all of them accelerate particles to the same maximum energy. Motivated by the fact that candidate astrophysical accelerators exhibit a vast diversity in terms of their relevant properties such as luminosity, Lorentz factor, and magnetic field strength, we study the compatibility of a population of sources with non-identical maximum cosmic-ray energies with the observed energy spectrum and composition of UHECRs at Earth. For this purpose, we compute the UHECR spectrum emerging from a population of sources with a power-law distribution of maximum energies applicable to a broad range of astrophysical scenarios. We find that the allowed source-to-source variance of the maximum energy must be small to describe the data. Even in the most extreme scenario, with a very sharp cutoff of individual source spectra and negative redshift evolution of the accelerators, the maximum energies of 90% of sources must be identical within a factor of three -- in contrast to the variance expected for astrophysical sources.

Comments: 17 pages, 7 figures, 5 tables. Submitted to Phys. Rev. D


Abstract: 2207.10927
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Title:Pantheon+ tomography and Hubble tension

Authors:Deng Wang
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Abstract: The recently released Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) sample, Pantheon+, is an updated version of Pantheon and has very important cosmological implications. To explore the origin of the enhanced constraining power and internal correlations of datasets in different redshifts, we perform a comprehensively tomographic analysis of the Pantheon+ sample. Using the Pantheon+ data alone, we give the $2\,\sigma$ lower bound on the Hubble constant $H_0>45.7$ km s$^{-1}$ Mpc$^{-1}$ and the matter fraction $\Omega_m=0.367\pm0.030$, which shows the evidence of dark energy at the $21\,\sigma$ confidence level but is in a $1.7\,\sigma$ tension with that from the Planck-2018 measurement. Combining the Pantheon+ sample with cosmic microwave background, baryon acoustic oscillations, cosmic chronometers, galaxy clustering and weak lensing data, we give the strongest constraint $H_0=67.88\pm0.42$ km s$^{-1}$ Mpc$^{-1}$ at the $1\,\sigma$ confidence level. After dividing the full sample to 10 bins, we find that the first bin in the redshift range $z\in[0.00122, \, 0.227235]$ dominates the constraining power of the whole sample. We also investigate the effects of low-z and high-z subsamples of Pantheon+ on $H_0$ and $\Omega_{m}$, and find that low-z SNe Ia do not have enough constraining power until $z\sim0.1$. Interestingly, high-z SNe Ia in the redshift range $z>0.227235$ can give an competitive constraint on $\Lambda$CDM when compared to three low-z bins. We expect that future high-precision SNe Ia data can independently determine both $H_0$ and $\Omega_{m}$.

Comments: 8 pages, 6 figs, 1 tab. A tomographic analysis of Pantheon+


Abstract: 2207.01913
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Title:Updated neutrino mass constraints from galaxy clustering and CMB lensing-galaxy cross-correlation measurements

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Abstract: We revisit cosmological constraints on the sum of the neutrino masses $\Sigma m_\nu$ from a combination of full-shape BOSS galaxy clustering [$P(k)$] data and measurements of the cross-correlation between Planck Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) lensing convergence and BOSS galaxy overdensity maps [$C^{\kappa \text{g}}_{\ell}$], using a simple but theoretically motivated model for the scale-dependent galaxy bias in auto- and cross-correlation measurements. We improve upon earlier related work in several respects, particularly through a more accurate treatment of the correlation and covariance between $P(k)$ and $C^{\kappa \text{g}}_{\ell}$ measurements. When combining these measurements with Planck CMB data, we find a 95% confidence level upper limit of $\Sigma m_\nu<0.14\,{\rm eV}$, while slightly weaker limits are obtained when including small-scale ACTPol CMB data, in agreement with our expectations. We confirm earlier findings that (once combined with CMB data) the full-shape information content is comparable to the geometrical information content in the reconstructed BAO peaks given the precision of current galaxy clustering data, discuss the physical significance of our inferred bias and shot noise parameters, and perform a number of robustness tests on our underlying model. While the inclusion of $C^{\kappa \text{g}}_{\ell}$ measurements does not currently appear to lead to substantial improvements in the resulting $\Sigma m_{\nu}$ constraints, we expect the converse to be true for near-future galaxy clustering measurements, whose shape information content will eventually supersede the geometrical one.

Comments: 52 pages, 7 sub-figures arranged in 6 figures, 2 tables. v2: additional references added, version accepted for publication in JHEAp


Abstract: 2207.05955
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Title:Can interacting dark energy with dynamical coupling resolve the Hubble tension

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Abstract: The $H_0$ tension between low- and high- redshift measurements is definitely a serious issue faced by current cosmologists since it ranges from 4$\sigma$ to 6$\sigma$. To relieve this tension, in this paper we propose a new interacting dark energy model with time varying coupling parameter by parameterizing the densities of dark matter and dark energy, this parametric approach for interacting dark sectors are inspired by our previous work concerning the coupled generalized three-form dark energy model in which dark matter and dark energy behave like two uncoupled dark sectors with effective equation of state when the three-form $|\kappa X|\gg1$, for this reason, we reconstruct coupled generalized three-form dark energy from such parametric model under the condition $|\kappa X_0|\gg1$. In the end, we place constraints on the parametric model with the coupled generalized three-form dark energy model proposed in our previous work in light of the Planck 2018 cosmic microwave background (CMB) distance priors, baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO) data from the BOSS Data Release (DR) 12, Pantheon compilation of Type Ia supernovae (SN Ia) data and the latest local determinations of the Hubble constant from Riess et al., i.e. the so called R20. The fitting results show that, comparing to R20, the parametric model relieves the Hubble tension to 0.05$\sigma$ with $\chi_{\rm min}^2=6.70$ and the coupled generalized three-form dark energy model relieves the Hubble tension to 0.70$\sigma$ with $\chi_{\rm min}^2=9.02$. However, it is worth noting that the tiny Hubble tension between R20 and the parametric model is mostly due to the fact that the introduction of the parameter $k$ greatly increase the uncertainty of the Hubble constant obtained without using a $H_0$ prior.

Comments: 11 pages, 4 figures, has been submitted to PRD


Abstract: 2207.08638
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Title:Signals from the Early Universe: Black Holes, Gravitational Waves and Particle Physics

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Abstract: We dedicate this thesis to the study of signatures coming from the primordial epochs of the universe. We will focus in particular on Primordial Black Holes (PBHs), which may be formed from perturbations generated during inflation and might comprise a fraction of the dark matter in the universe. In the first part of the thesis, we will address the PBH properties at the time of formation, that are their masses, spins and abundance, and investigate the generation of Gravitational Wave (GW) signals during their production. In the second part, we will describe the PBHs evolution across the cosmic history due to their assemble in binaries, phases of baryonic mass accretion and clustering effects. We will then discuss GW signatures coming from their coalescence, compare these predictions with present GW data detected by the LIGO/Virgo Collaboration (LVC) and assess the role of future GW experiments like 3G detectors and LISA in discovering these objects. Finally, in the third part, we will investigate some aspects of the interplay between black holes and fundamental physics in the early universe, focusing on the role of GWs to shed light on their properties.

Comments: 263 pages. PhD thesis


Abstract: 2207.09182
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Title:Iterative-Bayesian unfolding of isotopic cosmic-ray fluxes measured by AMS-02

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Abstract: The measurement of the isotopic composition of cosmic rays (CRs) provides essential insights the understanding of the origin and propagation of these particles, namely the CR source spectra, the propagation processes and the galactic halo size. The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS-02), a CR detector operating aboard the International Space Station since May 2011, has the capability of performing these measurements due to its precise determination of the velocity provided by its Time of Flight (TOF) and Ring Imaging Cherenkov (RICH) detector. The correct interpretation of the data requires the measurements to be deconvoluted from the instrumental effects. The unique design of AMS-02, with more than one subdetector being used to measure the same flux, requires a novel approach to unfold the measured fluxes. In this work, we describe an iterative-Bayesian unfolding method applied in the context of isotopic flux measurements in AMS-02. The accuracy of the method is assessed using a simulated flux based on previous measurements and a full detector response function. We introduce a non-parametric regularization method for the detector response functions, as well as a single, smooth prior flux covering the full range of measurements from both detectors, TOF and RICH. In addition, the estimation of the errors and a discussion about the performance of the method are also shown, demonstrating that the method is fast and reliable, allowing for the recovery of the true fluxes in the full energy range.

Comments: Submitted to NIM A


Abstract: 2207.09307
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Title:A search for dark matter among Fermi-LAT unidentified sources with systematic features in Machine Learning

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Abstract: Around one third of the point-like sources in the Fermi-LAT catalogs remain as unidentified sources (unIDs) today. Indeed, these unIDs lack a clear, univocal association with a known astrophysical source. If dark matter (DM) is composed of weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs), there is the exciting possibility that some of these unIDs may actually be DM sources, emitting gamma rays from WIMPs annihilation. We propose a new approach to solve the standard, Machine Learning (ML) binary classification problem of disentangling prospective DM sources (simulated data) from astrophysical sources (observed data) among the unIDs of the 4FGL Fermi-LAT catalogue. Concretely, we artificially build two systematic features for the DM data which are originally inherent to observed data: the detection significance and the uncertainty on the spectral curvature. We do it by sampling from the observed population of unIDs, assuming that the DM distributions would, if any, follow the latter. We consider different ML models: Logistic Regression, Neural Network (NN), Naive Bayes and Gaussian Process, out of which the best, in terms of classification accuracy, is the NN, achieving around 93% performance. Applying the NN to the unIDs sample, we find that the degeneracy between some astrophysical and DM sources can be partially solved within this methodology. Nonetheless, we conclude that there are no DM source candidates among the pool of 4FGL Fermi-LAT unIDs.

Comments: 13 pages, 14 figures, ready for submission to MNRAS


Abstract: 2207.09342
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Title:The total rest-frame UV luminosity function from $3 < z < 5$: A simultaneous study of AGN and galaxies from $-28<M_{\rm UV}<-16$

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Abstract: We present measurements of the rest-frame ultraviolet luminosity function (UV LF) at redshifts $z=3$, $z=4$ and $z=5$, using 96894, 38655 and 7571 sources respectively to map the transition between AGN and galaxy-dominated ultraviolet emission shortly after the epoch of reionization. Sources are selected using a comprehensive photometric redshift approach, using $10$\ds\, of deep extragalactic legacy fields covered by both HSC and VISTA. The use of template fitting spanning a wavelength range of $0.3\text{--}2.4\mu m$ achieves $80\text{--}90$ per cent completeness, much higher than classical colour-colour cut methodology. The measured LF encompasses $-26<M_{\rm UV}<-19.25(-20.5)$ at $z=3(5)$. This is further extended to $-28.5<M_{\rm UV}<-16$ using complementary results from other studies, allowing for the simultaneous fitting of the combined AGN and galaxy LF. We find that there are fewer UV luminous galaxies ($M_{\rm UV}<-22$) at $z\sim3$ than $z\sim4$, indicative of an onset of widespread quenching alongside dust obscuration, and that the evolution of the AGN LF is much more rapid than the galaxy LF, with their number density rising by around 2 orders of magnitude from $3<z<6$. We also find that it remains difficult to determine if a double power law (DPL) functional form is preferred over the Schechter function to describe the galaxy UV LF with photometric data alone. Estimating the Hydrogen ionizing photon budget from our UV LFs, we find that AGN can contribute to, but cannot solely maintain, the reionization of the Universe at $z=3-5$. However, the rapidly evolving AGN LF strongly disfavours a significant contribution within the EoR.

Comments: 20 pages, 5 Tables, 12 Figures, Submitted to MNRAS


Abstract: 2207.09440
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Title:A Convolutional Neural Network Approach to Supernova Time-Series Classification

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Abstract: One of the brightest objects in the universe, supernovae (SNe) are powerful explosions marking the end of a star's lifetime. Supernova (SN) type is defined by spectroscopic emission lines, but obtaining spectroscopy is often logistically unfeasible. Thus, the ability to identify SNe by type using time-series image data alone is crucial, especially in light of the increasing breadth and depth of upcoming telescopes. We present a convolutional neural network method for fast supernova time-series classification, with observed brightness data smoothed in both the wavelength and time directions with Gaussian process regression. We apply this method to full duration and truncated SN time-series, to simulate retrospective as well as real-time classification performance. Retrospective classification is used to differentiate cosmologically useful Type Ia SNe from other SN types, and this method achieves >99% accuracy on this task. We are also able to differentiate between 6 SN types with 60% accuracy given only two nights of data and 98% accuracy retrospectively.

Comments: Accepted at the ICML 2022 Workshop on Machine Learning for Astrophysics


Abstract: 2207.09456
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Title:A measure of cosmological distance using the \civ\ Baldwin effect in quasars

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Abstract: We use the anticorrelation between the equivalent width (EW) of the C\,\textsc{iv} 1549 Å emission line and the continuum luminosity in the quasars rest frame (Baldwin effect) to measure their luminosity distance as well as estimate cosmological parameters. We obtain a sample of 291 Type I quasars with the UV/optical spectra and EW (C\,\textsc{iv}) measurements in the redshift range of $1.506 \le z \le 4.72$, which can be used to investigate the C\,\textsc{iv} Baldwin effect and determine cosmological luminosity distance. The relation $EW(C\,\textsc{iv}) \propto {(\lambda {L_\lambda })^\gamma }$ can be applied to check the inverse correlation between the C\,\textsc{iv} EW and ${L_\lambda }$ of quasars and give their distance. The data suggest that the EW of C\,\textsc{iv} is inversely correlated with continuum monochromatic luminosities. On the other hand, we also consider dividing the Type I quasars sample into various redshift bins, which can be used to check if the C\,\textsc{iv} EW-luminosity relation depends on the redshift. Finally, we apply a combination of Type I quasars and SNIa Pantheon to test the property of dark energy concerning whether or not its density deviates from the constant, and give the statistical results.

Comments: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:2207.08390


Abstract: 2207.09632
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Title:Diffuse supernova neutrino background

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Abstract: Neutrinos are the second most ubiquitous Standard Model particles in the universe. On the other hand, they are also the ones least likely to interact. Connecting these two points suggests that when a neutrino is detected, it can divulge unique pieces of information about its source. Among the known neutrino sources, core-collapse supernovae in the universe are the most abundant for MeV-energies. On average, a single collapse happens every second in the observable universe and produces $10^{58}$ neutrinos. The flux of neutrinos reaching the Earth from all the core-collapse supernovae in the universe is known as diffuse supernova neutrino background. In this Chapter, the basic prediction for the diffuse supernova neutrino background is presented. This includes a discussion of an average neutrino signal from a core-collapse supernova, variability of that signal due to the remnant formed in the process, and uncertainties connected to the other astrophysical parameters determining the diffuse flux, such as cosmological supernova rate. In addition, the current experimental limits and detection perspectives of diffuse supernova neutrino background are reported.

Comments: Short review for the Handbook of Nuclear Physics. 18 pages, 4 figures


Abstract: 2207.09696
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Title:Do Pulsar and Fast Radio Burst dispersion measures obey Benford's law?

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Abstract: We check if the first significant digit of the dispersion measure of pulsars and Fast Radio Bursts (using the CHIME catalog) is consistent with the Benford distribution. We find a large disagreement with Benford's law with $\chi^2$ close to 80 for 8 degrees of freedom for both these aforementioned datasets. This corresponds to a discrepancy of about 7$\sigma$. Therefore, we conclude that the dispersion measures of pulsars and FRBs do not obey Benford's law.

Comments: 5 pages, 3 figures. Accepted for publication in Astroparticle Physics


Abstract: 2207.10165
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Title:A Probabilistic Method of Background Removal for High Energy Astrophysics Data

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Abstract: We present a new statistical method for constructing background subtracted measurements from event list data gathered by X-ray and gamma ray observatories. This method was initially developed specifically to construct images that account for the high background fraction and low overall count rates observed in survey data from the Mikhail Pavlinsky ART-XC telescope aboard the Spektrum Röntgen Gamma (SRG) mission, although the mathematical underpinnings are valid for data taken with other imaging missions and analysis applications. This method fully accounts for the expected Poisson fluctuations in both the sky photon and non X-ray background count rates in a manner that does not result in unphysical negative counts. We derive the formulae for arbitrary confidence intervals for the source counts and show that our new measurement converges exactly to the standard background subtraction calculation in the high signal limit. Utilizing these results, we discuss several variants of images designed to optimize different science goals for both pointed and slewing telescopes. Using realistic simulated data of a galaxy cluster as observed by ART-XC we show that our method provides a more significant and robust detection of the cluster emission as compared to a standard background subtraction. We also demonstrate its advantages using real observations of a point source from the ART-XC telescope. These calculations may have widespread applications for a number of source classes observed with high energy telescopes.

Comments: 15 pages, 9 figures, Accepted for Publication in MNRAS


Abstract: 2207.10235
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Title:Quintessential Cosmological Tensions

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Abstract: Several cosmological tensions have emerged in light of recent data, most notably in the inferences of the parameters $H_0$ and $\sigma_8$. We explore the possibility of alleviating both these tensions {\it simultaneously} by means of the Albrecht-Skordis ``quintessence'' potential. The field can reduce the size of the sound horizon $r_s^*$ while concurrently suppressing the power in matter density fluctuations before it comes to dominate the energy density budget today. Interestingly, this rich set of dynamics is governed entirely by one free parameter that is of $\mathcal{O}(10)$ in Planck units. We find that the inferred value of $H_0$ can be increased, while that of $\sigma_8$ can be decreased, both by $\approx 1\sigma$ compared to the $\Lambda$CDM case. However, ultimately the model is disfavored by Planck and BAO data alone, compared to the standard $\Lambda$CDM model, with a $\Delta \chi^2 \approx +6$. When including large scale structure and supernova data $\Delta \chi^2 \approx +1$. We note that historically much attention has been focused on preserving the three angular scales $\theta_D$, $\theta_{EQ}$, and $\theta_s^*$ to their $\Lambda$CDM values. Our work presents an example of how, while doing so indeed maintains a relatively good fit to the CMB data for an increased number of ultra-relativistic species, it is a-priori insufficient in maintaining such a fit in more general model spaces.

Comments: 18 pages, 8 figures, 1 appendix


Abstract: 2207.10411
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Title:Cosmic Ray Rejection with Attention Augmented Deep Learning

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Abstract: Cosmic Ray (CR) hits are the major contaminants in astronomical imaging and spectroscopic observations involving solid-state detectors. Correctly identifying and masking them is a crucial part of the image processing pipeline, since it may otherwise lead to spurious detections. For this purpose, we have developed and tested a novel Deep Learning based framework for the automatic detection of CR hits from astronomical imaging data from two different imagers: Dark Energy Camera (DECam) and Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope (LCOGT). We considered two baseline models namely deepCR and Cosmic-CoNN, which are the current state-of-the-art learning based algorithms that were trained using Hubble Space Telescope (HST) ACS/WFC and LCOGT Network images respectively. We have experimented with the idea of augmenting the baseline models using Attention Gates (AGs) to improve the CR detection performance. We have trained our models on DECam data and demonstrate a consistent marginal improvement by adding AGs in True Positive Rate (TPR) at 0.01% False Positive Rate (FPR) and Precision at 95% TPR over the aforementioned baseline models for the DECam dataset. We demonstrate that the proposed AG augmented models provide significant gain in TPR at 0.01% FPR when tested on previously unseen LCO test data having images from three distinct telescope classes. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the proposed baseline models with and without attention augmentation outperform state-of-the-art models such as Astro-SCRAPPY, Maximask (that is trained natively on DECam data) and pre-trained ground-based Cosmic-CoNN. This study demonstrates that the AG module augmentation enables us to get a better deepCR and Cosmic-CoNN models and to improve their generalization capability on unseen data.

Comments: 21 pages, 23 figures. Accepted in Astronomy and Computing


Abstract: 2207.10471
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Title:Search for dark matter annihilation signals in the H.E.S.S. Inner Galaxy Survey

Authors:H.E.S.S. Collaboration, H. Abdalla, F. Aharonian, F. Ait Benkhali, E.O. Anguner, C. Armand, H. Ashkar, M. Backes, V. Baghmanyan, V. Barbosa Martins, R. Batzofin, Y. Becherini, D. Berge, K. Bernlohr, B. Bi, M. Bottcher, J. Bolmont, M. de Bony de Lavergne, R. Brose, F. Brun, F. Cangemi, S. Caroff, M. Cerruti, T. Chand, A. Chen, G. Cotter, J. Damascene Mbarubucyeye, J. Devin, A. Djannati-Ataı, A. Dmytriiev, V. Doroshenko, K. Egberts, A. Fiasson, G. Fichet de Clairfontaine, G. Fontaine, S. Funk, S. Gabici, G. Giavitto, D. Glawion, J.F. Glicenstein, M.-H. Grondin, J.A. Hinton, W. Hofmann, T. L. Holch, M. Holler, D. Horns, Zhiqiu Huang, M. Jamrozy, F. Jankowsky, E. Kasai, K. Katarzynski, U. Katz, B. Khelifi, W. Kluzniak, Nu. Komin, K. Kosack, D. Kostunin, G. Lamanna, M. Lemoine-Goumard, J.-P. Lenain, F. Leuschner, T. Lohse, A. Luashvili, I. Lypova, J. Mackey, D. Malyshev, D. Malyshev, V. Marandon, P. Marchegiani, G. Martı-Devesa, R. Marx, G. Maurin, M. Meyer, A. Mitchell, R. Moderski, A. Montanari, E. Moulin, J. Muller, M. de Naurois, J. Niemiec, A. Priyana Noel, S. Ohm, L. Olivera-Nieto, E. de Ona Wilhelmi, M. Ostrowski, S. Panny, M. Panter, R.D. Parsons, G. Peron, V. Poireau, H. Prokoph, G. Puhlhofer, M. Punch, A. Quirrenbach, P. Reichherzer, A. Reimer, O. Reimer, M. Renaud, F. Rieger, G. Rowell et al. (41 additional authors not shown)
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Abstract: The central region of the Milky Way is one of the foremost locations to look for dark matter (DM) signatures. We report the first results on a search for DM particle annihilation signals using new observations from an unprecedented gamma-ray survey of the Galactic Center (GC) region, ${\it i.e.}$, the Inner Galaxy Survey, at very high energies ($\gtrsim$ 100 GeV) performed with the H.E.S.S. array of five ground-based Cherenkov telescopes. No significant gamma-ray excess is found in the search region of the 2014-2020 dataset and a profile likelihood ratio analysis is carried out to set exclusion limits on the annihilation cross section $\langle \sigma v\rangle$. Assuming Einasto and Navarro-Frenk-White (NFW) DM density profiles at the GC, these constraints are the strongest obtained so far in the TeV DM mass range. For the Einasto profile, the constraints reach $\langle \sigma v\rangle$ values of $\rm 3.7\times10^{-26} cm^3s^{-1}$ for 1.5 TeV DM mass in the $W^+W^-$ annihilation channel, and $\rm 1.2 \times 10^{-26} cm^3s^{-1}$ for 0.7 TeV DM mass in the $\tau^+\tau^-$ annihilation channel. With the H.E.S.S. Inner Galaxy Survey, ground-based $\gamma$-ray observations thus probe $\langle \sigma v\rangle$ values expected from thermal-relic annihilating TeV DM particles.

Comments: Accepted in Phys. Rev. Lett., includes Supplemental materials. 5+10 pages, 2+8 figures, 4 tables


Abstract: 2207.10616
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Title:TAROGE-M: Radio Antenna Array on Antarctic High Mountain for Detecting Near-Horizontal Ultra-High Energy Air Showers

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Abstract: TAROGE-M is a self-triggered radio antenna array atop the 2700 m high Mt. Melbourne in Antarctica, designed to detect impulsive geomagnetic emission from extensive air showers induced by ultra-high energy (UHE) particles beyond 0.1 EeV, including cosmic rays (CRs), Earth-skimming tau neutrinos, and particularly, the "ANITA anomalous events" (AAEs) from near and below the horizon, which origin remains uncertain and requires more experimental inputs for clarification.
The detection concept of TAROGE-M takes advantage of a high altitude with synoptic view toward the horizon as an efficient signal collector, and the radio quietness as well as strong and near vertical geomagnetic field in Antarctica. This approach has a low energy threshold, high duty cycle, and is easy to extend for quickly enlarging statistics. Here we report experimental results from the first TAROGE-M station deployed in 2020, corresponding to $25.3$-days of livetime. The station consists of six receiving antennas operating at 180-450 MHz, and can reconstruct source directions with $\sim0.3^\circ$ angular resolution. To demonstrate its ability to detect UHE air showers, a search for CR signals in the data was conducted, resulting in seven identified events. These events have a mean reconstructed energy of $0.95_{-0.31}^{+0.46}$ EeV and zenith angles between $25^\circ-82^\circ$, with both distributions agreeing with simulations. The estimated CR flux is also consistent with results of other experiments. The TAROGE-M sensitivity to AAEs is approximated by the tau neutrino exposure with simulations, suggesting comparable sensitivity as ANITA's at $~1$ EeV energy with a few station-years of operation. These first results verified the station design and performance in a polar and high-altitude environment, and are promising for further discovery of tau neutrinos and AAEs after an extension in the near future.

Comments: 41 pages, 23 figures, to be submitted to JCAP


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