Very High Energy Gamma-Ray Emission from the Blazar Markarian 421

Very high energy gamma-ray emission from the BL Lac object Markarian 421 has been detected over three observing seasons on 59 nights between April 1992 and June 1994 with the Whipple 10-meter imaging Cherenkov telescope. During its initial detection in 1992, its flux above 500 GeV was 1.6$\times$10$^{-11}$photons cm$^{-2}$ s$^{-1}$. Observations in 1993 confirmed this level of emission. For observations made between December 1993 and April 1994, its intensity was a factor of 2.2$\pm$0.5 lower. Observations on 14 and 15 May, 1994 showed an increase over this quiescent level by a factor of $\sim$10 (Kerrick et al. 1995). This strong outburst suggests that 4 episodes of increased flux measurements on similar time scales in 1992 and 1994 may be attributed to somewhat weaker outbursts. The variability of the TeV gamma-ray emission from Markarian 421 stands in contrast to EGRET observations (Lin et al. 1994) which show no evidence for variability.Comment: gzip compressed tar file including LaTeX text and 4 postscript figures (14 pages total incl. 4 tables), accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal. Contact address is [email protected]

Selection of optimal reference genes for normalization in quantitative RT-PCR

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Normalization in real-time qRT-PCR is necessary to compensate for experimental variation. A popular normalization strategy employs reference gene(s), which may introduce additional variability into normalized expression levels due to innate variation (between tissues, individuals, etc). To minimize this innate variability, multiple reference genes are used. Current methods of selecting reference genes make an assumption of independence in their innate variation. This assumption is not always justified, which may lead to selecting a suboptimal set of reference genes.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We propose a robust approach for selecting optimal subset(s) of reference genes with the smallest variance of the corresponding normalizing factors. The normalizing factor variance estimates are based on the estimated unstructured covariance matrix of all available candidate reference genes, adjusting for all possible correlations. Robustness is achieved through bootstrapping all candidate reference gene data and obtaining the bootstrap upper confidence limits for the variances of the log-transformed normalizing factors. The selection of the reference gene subset is optimized with respect to one of the following criteria: (A) to minimize the variability of the normalizing factor; (B) to minimize the number of reference genes with acceptable upper limit on variability of the normalizing factor, (C) to minimize the average rank of the variance of the normalizing factor. The proposed approach evaluates all gene subsets of various sizes rather than ranking individual reference genes by their stability, as in the previous work. In two publicly available data sets and one new data set, our approach identified subset(s) of reference genes with smaller empirical variance of the normalizing factor than in subsets identified using previously published methods. A small simulation study indicated an advantage of the proposed approach in terms of sensitivity to identify the true optimal reference subset in the presence of even modest, especially negative correlation among the candidate reference genes.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The proposed approach performs comprehensive and robust evaluation of the variability of normalizing factors based on all possible subsets of candidate reference genes. The results of this evaluation provide flexibility to choose from important criteria for selecting the optimal subset(s) of reference genes, unless one subset meets all the criteria. This approach identifies gene subset(s) with smaller variability of normalizing factors than current standard approaches, particularly if there is some nontrivial innate correlation among the candidate genes.</p

Observations of the Crab nebula at TeV energies

The results of four years of observation of the Crab Nebula at TeV energies by the Whipple group are discussed and the status of the Crab Nebula as a standard candle for TeV astronomy is reviewed.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/87647/2/270_1.pd

TEV gamma ray emission from the active galactic nucleus Markarian 421

TeV energy gamma ray emission from the blazar Markarian 421 was detected with the Whipple 10 meter imaging Cherenkov telescope initially during the observation period March‐June 1992 at an average photon flux of 1.5×10−11 cm2 s−1. The photon spectrum in the TeV range lies on the extrapolation of the data points observed by EGRET during viewing phase I and indicates that the emission follows an unchanged power law between 100 MeV and 10 TeV with no significant intergalactic absorption. More recent observations from the spring of 1993 confirm the 1992 measurements. Here we give an update on the status of the observations, the analysis for time variability, and the results from the analysis to determine the spectral index for Markarian 421 at TeV energies.The search for TeV emission from other extragalactic sources detected by the EGRET instrument on the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory at GeV energies have so far been negative.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/87648/2/597_1.pd

Searches for bursts of TEV gamma rays on time‐scales of seconds

The Whipple Observatory gamma‐ray telescope has a high sensitivity to sources of gamma rays in the 0.4 to 4 TeV energy range. Although this sensitivity is used primarily to search for discrete sources of gamma‐rays the instrument also has sensitivity to gamma‐ray bursts on time‐scales from milliseconds to seconds. The field of view is limited but the source location capability is good. Such bursts could radiate with peak luminosity at TeV energies and could originate from(a) primordial black holes or (b) cosmic strings; they could also be the high energy counterparts of BATSE‐type bursts and hence of unknown origin. The search of the Whipple data‐base for statistically unlikely consecutive events on time‐scales of second will be described and compared with the theoretical predictions. © 1994 American Institute of Physics.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/87630/2/470_1.pd

Detection of TeV gamma rays from the AGN Markarian 421

We present here the detection of TeV gamma rays from the extragalactic source Markarian 421. Observations obtained with the Whipple 10 m imaging Cherenkov telescope in March–June 1992 give a gamma ray signal with statistical significance of 6.3σ above background. The excess corresponds to an average flux of 1.5×10−11 cm−2 s−1 above 0.5 TeV, equivalent to 0.3 of that from the Crab Nebula. The estimated location of the source agrees with the position of Mrk 421 to the angular uncertainty of the Whipple instrument (6 arc minutes).Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/87671/2/185_1.pd