Upper Limits on the VHE Gamma-Ray Flux of SN2014J in M82 From Observations by MAGIC
ATel #5880; Max-Planck-Institute for Physics
on 12 Feb 2014; 02:24 UT
Credential Certification: Razmik Mirzoyan (Razmik.Mirzoyan@mpp.mpg.de)
Subjects: Gamma Ray, TeV, VHE, Supernovae
The MAGIC collaboration observed SN2014J, the nearest supernova (SN) explosion in 10 years, located in the galaxy M82. The MAGIC observations started 6 days after the first detection by the UCL Observatory (CBET #3792) and amounted to a total of 5.4 hours. This Ia-type SN is unique and follow-up observations in all wavelengths have been pursued (i.e. ATel #5835, #5809, #5812, #5851).
The SN was observed with the MAGIC telescopes from January 27 to 29 under moderate moonlight conditions and on February 1 and 2 under dark-night conditions. The preliminary analysis of these data resulted in an integral flux upper limit of 1.6e-12 cm-2 s-1 above the energy 300 GeV at 95% c.l. (this corresponds to ~1.3% of the Crab Nebula flux; for energies above 700 GeV the corresponding limit is ~2%), assuming a Crab-like spectral index. The daily flux upper limits (~1h observation per day) vary from 1.8e-12 to 18.e-12 cm-2 s-1 (E>300 GeV, 95% c.l.), due to different observational conditions. The VHE flux contribution from the host galaxy M82 was previously measured by VERITAS (Nature, 462, 700) at the level of 0.9% of the Crab flux for E>700 GeV. The MAGIC observations covered the maximum of the SN brightening (on Jan 31, mag=10.5 AAVSO data: PSN J09554214+6940260).
MAGIC is a system of two 17m-diameter Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes located at the Canary island of La Palma, Spain, and designed to perform gamma-ray astronomy in the energy range from 50 GeV to greater than 50 TeV.
Questions regarding the MAGIC observations should be directed to Razmik Mirzoyan (Razmik.Mirzoyan@mpp.mpg.de) and Christian Fruck (christian.fruck@gmail.com).
