The Galactic Center Region Imaged by VERITAS

TL;DR

This paper reports on VERITAS observations of the Galactic Center, confirming high-energy gamma-ray emission and comparing results with Fermi data and astrophysical models.

Contribution

It provides new observational data from VERITAS at large zenith angles, confirming the high-energy spectrum of the Galactic Center detected by H.E.S.S.

Findings

>10 sigma detection of gamma-ray emission

Confirmation of the high-energy spectrum observed by H.E.S.S.

Comparison of VERITAS and Fermi results with astrophysical models

Abstract

The Galactic Center has long been a region of interest for high-energy and very-high-energy observations. Many potential sources of GeV/TeV gamma-ray emission have been suggested, e.g., the accretion of matter onto the black hole, cosmic rays from a nearby supernova remnant, or the annihilation of dark matter particles. The Galactic Center has been detected at MeV/GeV energies by EGRET and recently by Fermi/LAT. At GeV/TeV energies, the Galactic Center was detected by different ground-based Cherenkov telescopes such as CANGAROO, Whipple 10m, H.E.S.S., and MAGIC. We present the results from 15 hrs of VERITAS observations conducted at large zenith angles, resulting in a >10 standard deviation detection and confirmation of the high-energy spectrum observed by H.E.S.S. The combined Fermi/VERITAS results are compared to astrophysical models.