Spectral Study of Very-high-energy Gamma Rays from SS 433 with HAWC

Authors

R. Alfaro, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
C. Alvarez, Universidad Autónoma de Chiapas
J. C. Arteaga-Velázquez, Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo
D. Avila Rojas, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
H. A. Ayala Solares, Eberly College of Science
R. Babu, Michigan State University
S. Groetsch, Michigan Technological UniversityFollow
P. Hüntemeyer, Michigan Technological UniversityFollow
R. Turner, Michigan Technological UniversityFollow
Zhenlin Wang, Michigan Technological UniversityFollow
et al.

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

11-12-2024

Department

Department of Physics

Abstract

Very-high-energy (0.1-100 TeV) gamma-ray emissions were observed in High-Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) data from the lobes of the microquasar SS 433, making them the first set of astrophysical jets that were resolved at TeV energies. In this work, we update the analysis of SS 433 using 2565 days of data from the HAWC observatory. Our analysis reports the detection of a point-like source in the east lobe at a significance of 6.6σ and in the west lobe at a significance of 8.2σ. For each jet lobe, we localize the gamma-ray emission and identify a best-fit position. The locations are close to the X-ray emission sites “e1” and “w1” for the east and west lobes, respectively. We analyze the spectral energy distributions and find that the energy spectra of the lobes are consistent with a simple power law d N/d E ∝ E α with α = − 2.44 − 0.12 − 0.04 + 0.13 + 0.04 and α = − 2.35 − 0.11 − 0.03 + 0.12 + 0.03 for the east and west lobes, respectively. The maximum energy of photons from the east and west lobes reaches 56 TeV and 123 TeV, respectively. We compare our observations to various models and conclude that the very-high-energy gamma-ray emission can be produced by a population of electrons that were efficiently accelerated.

Publisher's Statement

© 2024. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society. Publisher’s version of record: https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ad7e1b

Publication Title

Astrophysical Journal

Recommended Citation

Alfaro, R., Alvarez, C., Arteaga-Velázquez, J., Avila Rojas, D., Ayala Solares, H., Babu, R., Groetsch, S., Hüntemeyer, P., Turner, R., Wang, Z., & et al. (2024). Spectral Study of Very-high-energy Gamma Rays from SS 433 with HAWC. Astrophysical Journal, 976(1). http://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ad7e1b
Retrieved from: https://digitalcommons.mtu.edu/michigantech-p2/1218

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Version

Publisher's PDF