The H.E.S.S. View of the Central 200 Parsecs

The inner few hundred parsecs of our galaxy provide a laboratory for the study of the production and propagation of energetic particles. Very-high-energy gamma-rays provide an effective probe of these processes and, especially when combined with data from other wave-bands, gamma-rays observations are a powerful diagnostic tool. Within this central region, data from the H.E.S.S. instrument have revealed three discrete sources of very-high-energy gamma-rays and diffuse emission correlated with the distribution of molecular material. Here I provide an overview of these recent results from H.E.S.S.Comment: Proceedings of the Galactic Centre Workshop 200

Ultra-high neutrino fluxes as a probe for non-standard physics

We examine how light neutrinos coming from distant active galactic nuclei (AGN) and similar high energy sources may be used as tools to probe non-standard physics. In particular we discuss how studying the energy spectra of each neutrino flavour coming from such distant sources and their distortion relative to each other may serve as pointers to exotic physics such as neutrino decay, Lorentz symmetry violation, pseudo-Dirac effects, CP and CPT violation and quantum decoherence. This allows us to probe hitherto unexplored ranges of parameters for the above cases, for example lifetimes in the range $10^{-3}-10^{4}$ s/eV for the case of neutrino decay. We show that standard neutrino oscillations ensure that the different flavours arrive at the earth with similar shapes even if their flavour spectra at source may differ strongly in both shape and magnitude. As a result, observed differences between the spectra of various flavours at the detector would be signatures of non-standard physics altering neutrino fluxes during propagation rather than those arising during their production at source. Since detection of ultra-high energy (UHE) neutrinos is perhaps imminent, it is possible that such differences in spectral shapes will be tested in neutrino detectors in the near future. To that end, using the IceCube detector as an example, we show how our results translate to observable shower and muon-track event rates.Comment: 16 pages, 10 figure

Understanding hadronic gamma-ray emission from supernova remnants

We aim to test the plausibility of a theoretical framework in which the gamma-ray emission detected from supernova remnants may be of hadronic origin, i.e., due to the decay of neutral pions produced in nuclear collisions involving relativistic nuclei. In particular, we investigate the effects induced by magnetic field amplification on the expected particle spectra, outlining a phenomenological scenario consistent with both the underlying Physics and the larger and larger amount of observational data provided by the present generation of gamma experiments, which seem to indicate rather steep spectra for the accelerated particles. In addition, in order to study to study how pre-supernova winds might affect the expected emission in this class of sources, the time-dependent gamma-ray luminosity of a remnant with a massive progenitor is worked out. Solid points and limitations of the proposed scenario are finally discussed in a critical way.Comment: 30 pages, 5 figures; Several comments, references and a figure added. Some typos correcte

Discovery of Very High Energy gamma - ray emission from the extreme BL Lac object H2356-309 with H.E.S.S

The understanding of acceleration mechanisms in active galactic nuclei (AGN) jets and the measurement of the extragalactic-background-light (EBL) density are closely linked and require the detection of a large sample of very-high-energy (VHE) emitting extragalactic objects at varying redshifts. We report here on the discovery with the H.E.S.S. (High Energy Stereoscopic System) atmospheric-Cherenkov telescopes of the VHE Gamma-ray emission from H2356 - 309, an extreme BL Lac object located at a redshift of 0.165. The observations of this object, which was previously proposed as a southern-hemisphere VHE candidate source, were performed between June and December 2004. The total exposure is 38.9 hours live time, after data quality selection, which yields the detection of a signal at the level of 9.0$\sigma$ (standard deviations) .Comment: To appear on proceeding of 29th International Cosmic Ray Conference (ICRC 2005

Probing Lorentz Invariance at EeV Energy

Pierre Auger experiment has detected at least a couple of ray events above energy 60 EeV from the direction of the radio-galaxy Centaurus A. Assuming those events are from Centaurus A, we have calculated the number of neutral cosmic ray events from this source for small values of the degree of violation in Lorentz invariance. Our results show that a comparison of our calculated numbers of events with the observed number of events at EeV energy from the direction of the source can probe extremely low value of the degree of this violation.Comment: 8 pages,4 figure

Antiproton constraints on dark matter annihilations from internal electroweak bremsstrahlung

If the dark matter particle is a Majorana fermion, annihilations into two fermions and one gauge boson could have, for some choices of the parameters of the model, a non-negligible cross-section. Using a toy model of leptophilic dark matter, we calculate the constraints on the annihilation cross-section into two electrons and one weak gauge boson from the PAMELA measurements of the cosmic antiproton-to-proton flux ratio. Furthermore, we calculate the maximal astrophysical boost factor allowed in the Milky Way under the assumption that the leptophilic dark matter particle is the dominant component of dark matter in our Universe. These constraints constitute very conservative estimates on the boost factor for more realistic models where the dark matter particle also couples to quarks and weak gauge bosons, such as the lightest neutralino which we also analyze for some concrete benchmark points. The limits on the astrophysical boost factors presented here could be used to evaluate the prospects to detect a gamma-ray signal from dark matter annihilations at currently operating IACTs as well as in the projected CTA.Comment: 32 pages; 13 figure

The H.E.S.S. extragalactic sky

The H.E.S.S. Cherenkov telescope array, located on the southern hemisphere in Namibia, studies very high energy (VHE; E>100 GeV) gamma-ray emission from astrophysical objects. During its successful operations since 2002 more than 80 galactic and extra-galactic gamma-ray sources have been discovered. H.E.S.S. devotes over 400 hours of observation time per year to the observation of extra-galactic sources resulting in the discovery of several new sources, mostly AGNs, and in exciting physics results e.g. the discovery of very rapid variability during extreme flux outbursts of PKS 2155-304, stringent limits on the density of the extragalactic background light (EBL) in the near-infrared derived from the energy spectra of distant sources, or the discovery of short-term variability in the VHE emission from the radio galaxy M 87. With the recent launch of the Fermi satellite in 2008 new insights into the physics of AGNs at GeV energies emerged, leading to the discovery of several new extragalactic VHE sources. Multi-wavelength observations prove to be a powerful tool to investigate the production mechanism for VHE emission in AGNs. Here, new results from H.E.S.S. observations of extragalactic sources will be presented and their implications for the physics of these sources will be discussed.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures, invited review talk, in the proceedings of the "International Workshop on Beamed and Unbeamed Gamma-Rays from Galaxies" 11-15 April 2011, Lapland Hotel Olos, Muonio, Finland, Journal of Physics: Conference Series Volume 355, 201

Galaxy Clusters as Reservoirs of Heavy Dark Matter and High-Energy Cosmic Rays: Constraints from Neutrino Observations

Galaxy Clusters (GCs) are the largest reservoirs of both dark matter and cosmic rays (CRs). Dark matter self-annihilation can lead to a high luminosity in gamma rays and neutrinos, enhanced by a strong degree of clustering in dark matter substructures. Hadronic CR interactions can also lead to a high luminosity in gamma rays and neutrinos, enhanced by the confinement of CRs from cluster accretion/merger shocks and active galactic nuclei. We show that IceCube/KM3Net observations of high-energy neutrinos can probe the nature of GCs and the separate dark matter and CR emission processes, taking into account how the results depend on the still-substantial uncertainties. Neutrino observations are relevant at high energies, especially at >10 TeV. Our results should be useful for improving experimental searches for high-energy neutrino emission. Neutrino telescopes are sensitive to extended sources formed by dark matter substructures and CRs distributed over large scales. Recent observations by Fermi and imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes have placed interesting constraints on the gamma-ray emission from GCs. We also provide calculations of the gamma-ray fluxes, taking into account electromagnetic cascades inside GCs, which can be important for injections at sufficiently high energies. This also allows us to extend previous gamma-ray constraints to very high dark matter masses and significant CR injections at very high energies. Using both neutrinos and gamma rays, which can lead to comparable constraints, will allow more complete understandings of GCs. Neutrinos are essential for some dark matter annihilation channels, and for hadronic instead of electronic CRs. Our results suggest that the multi-messenger observations of GCs will be able to give useful constraints on specific models of dark matter and CRs. [Abstract abridged.]Comment: 31 pages, 20 figures, 1 table, accepted for publication in JCAP, references and discussions adde