Observation of the Perseus galaxy cluster with the MAGIC telescopes

TL;DR

This paper reports the deepest observations of the Perseus galaxy cluster with MAGIC telescopes, detecting key galaxies and constraining gamma-ray emission models related to cosmic rays and dark matter.

Contribution

First deep gamma-ray observations of a galaxy cluster with MAGIC, detecting specific galaxies and setting constraints on emission models.

Findings

Detection of NGC 1275 and IC 310 in gamma rays

Constraints on cosmic ray acceleration models

Implications for dark matter scenarios

Abstract

The MAGIC ground-based Imaging Cherenkov experiment observed the Perseus galaxy cluster for a total of about 25 hr between November and December 2008 in single telescope mode and for nearly 90 hr between October 2009 and February 2011 in stereoscopic mode. This survey represents the deepest observation of a cluster of galaxies at very high energies ever. It resulted in the detection of the central radio galaxy NGC 1275 and the head-tail radio galaxy IC 310. It also permits for the first time to put constraints on emission models predicting gamma-rays from cosmic ray acceleration in the cluster and to investigate dark matter scenarios. Here, we will report the latest MAGIC results on these studies.