High Energy Gamma-Ray Observations of the Crab Nebula and Pulsar with the Solar Tower Atmospheric Cherenkov Effect Experiment

Abstract

The Solar Tower Atmospheric Cherenkov Effect Experiment (STACEE) is a new ground-based atmospheric Cherenkov telescope for gamma-ray astronomy. STACEE uses the large mirror area of a solar heliostat facility to achieve a low energy threshold. A prototype experiment which uses 32 heliostat mirrors with a total mirror area of ~ 1200\unit{m^2} has been constructed. This prototype, called STACEE-32, was used to search for high energy gamma-ray emission from the Crab Nebula and Pulsar. Observations taken between November 1998 and February 1999 yield a strong statistical excess of gamma-like events from the Crab, with a significance of $+6.75\sigma$ in 43 hours of on-source observing time. No evidence for pulsed emission from the Crab Pulsar was found, and the upper limit on the pulsed fraction of the observed excess was < 5.5% at the 90% confidence level. A subset of the data was used to determine the integral flux of gamma rays from the Crab. We report an energy threshold of E_{th} = 190 \pm 60\unit{GeV}, and a measured integral flux of I (E > E_{th}) = (2.2 \pm 0.6 \pm 0.2) \times 10^{-10}\unit{photons cm^{-2} s^{-1}}. The observed flux is in agreement with a continuation to lower energies of the power law spectrum seen at TeV energies.