Search for Pulsed Emission in Archival VERITAS Data

TL;DR

This paper reports on the ongoing search for pulsed very high energy gamma-ray emission from pulsars using archival VERITAS data, aiming to constrain emission models and locations.

Contribution

It presents the status of a systematic search for VHE pulsed emission from 19 pulsars in VERITAS archival data, expanding the observational dataset.

Findings

No pulsed VHE emission detected so far

Observations of 11 pulsars with over 20 hours each

Data will help refine models of pulsar emission regions

Abstract

Since the 2011 VERITAS discovery of very high energy (VHE; E>100 GeV) gamma rays from the Crab pulsar, there has been concerted effort by the gamma-ray astrophysics community to detect other pulsars in the VHE band in order to place better constraints on emission models. Pulsar modelling demonstrates that much of the magnetosphere is opaque to VHE photons, limiting emission regions to the outer magnetosphere or beyond the light cylinder. The locations of 19 known pulsars have been observed by VERITAS since full observations began in 2007 with 11 locations having more than 20 hours of observations. Observations of VHE emission from more sources could provide key data to help constrain current models of emission location and mechanisms. We present the status of the ongoing VERITAS program searching for pulsed emission in archival data.