Fermi Discovery of Gamma-ray Emission from the Globular Cluster Terzan 5

Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics – High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena

Scientific paper

Rate now

  [ 0.00 ] – not rated yet Voters 0   Comments 0

Details

4 pages, 2 figures; accepted for publication in ApJL

Scientific paper

We report the discovery of gamma-ray emission from the Galactic globular cluster Terzan 5 using data taken with the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, from 2008 August 8 to 2010 January 1. Terzan 5 is clearly detected in the 0.5-20 GeV band by Fermi at ~27\sigma level. This makes Terzan 5 as the second gamma-ray emitting globular cluster seen by Fermi after 47 Tuc. The energy spectrum of Terzan 5 is best represented by an exponential cutoff power-law model, with a photon index of ~1.9 and a cutoff energy at ~3.8 GeV. By comparing to 47 Tuc, we suggest that the observed gamma-ray emission is associated with millisecond pulsars, and is either from the magnetospheres or inverse Compton scattering between the relativistic electrons/positrons in the pulsar winds and the background soft photons from the Galactic plane. Furthermore, it is suggestive that the distance to Terzan 5 is less than 10 kpc and > 10 GeV photons can be seen in the future.

No associations

LandOfFree

Say what you really think

Search LandOfFree.com for scientists and scientific papers. Rate them and share your experience with other people.

Rating

Fermi Discovery of Gamma-ray Emission from the Globular Cluster Terzan 5 does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.

If you have personal experience with Fermi Discovery of Gamma-ray Emission from the Globular Cluster Terzan 5, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Fermi Discovery of Gamma-ray Emission from the Globular Cluster Terzan 5 will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

     

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-419056

  Search
All data on this website is collected from public sources. Our data reflects the most accurate information available at the time of publication.