Letter to the Editor

Detection of TeV γ-ray emission from the shell-type supernova remnant RX J0852.0-4622 with HESS

¹ Max-Planck-Institut für Kernphysik, Heidelberg, Germany;
² Yerevan Physics Institute, Armenia;
³ Centre d'Étude Spatiale des Rayonnements, CNRS/UPS, Toulouse, France;
⁴ Universität Hamburg, Institut für Experimentalphysik, Germany;
⁵ Institut für Physik, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany, e-mail: komin@physik.hu-berlin.de;
⁶ LUTH, UMR 8102 du CNRS, Observatoire de Paris, Section de Meudon, France;
⁷ University of Durham, Department of Physics, UK;
⁸ Laboratoire Leprince-Ringuet, IN2P3/CNRS, École Polytechnique, Palaiseau, France;
⁹ European Associated Laboratory for Gamma-Ray Astronomy, jointly supported by CNRS and MPG
¹⁰ APC, Paris, France;
¹¹ Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, Ireland;
¹² Landessternwarte, Königstuhl, Heidelberg, Germany;
¹³ Laboratoire de Physique Théorique et Astroparticules, IN2P3/CNRS, Université Montpellier II, France;
¹⁴ Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Grenoble, INSU/CNRS, Université Joseph Fourier, France;
¹⁵ DAPNIA/DSM/CEA, CE Saclay, Gif-sur-Yvette, France;
¹⁶ Unit for Space Physics, North-West University, Potchefstroom, South Africa;
¹⁷ Laboratoire de Physique Nucléaire et de Hautes Énergies, IN2P3/CNRS, Universités Paris VI & VII, France;
¹⁸ Institut für Theoretische Physik, Lehrstuhl IV, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany;
¹⁹ Institute of Particle and Nuclear Physics, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic;
²⁰ University of Namibia, Windhoek, Namibia;

Received: 2 March 2005
Accepted: 18 May 2005

Abstract

We report the detection of TeV γ-rays from the shell-type supernova remnant RX J0852.0-4622 with data of 3.2 h of live time recorded with HESS in February 2004. An excess of () events from the whole remnant with a significance of 12 σ was found. The observed emission region is clearly extended with a radius of the order of and the spatial distribution of the signal correlates with X-ray observations. The spectrum in the energy range between 500 GeV and 15 TeV is well described by a power law with a photon index of  and a differential flux at 1 TeV of . The integral flux above 1 TeV was measured to be , which is at the level of the flux of the Crab nebula at these energies. More data are needed to draw firm conclusions on the magnetic field in the remnant and the type of the particle population creating the TeV γ-rays.