The Solar Tower Atmospheric Cherenkov Effect Experiment (STACEE) is an atmospheric Cherenkov telescope that detects cosmic gamma-rays using the wavefront-sampling technique. STACEE uses the large mirror area of the National Solar Thermal Test Facility (NSTTF) to achieve an energy threshold below 200 GeV. This telescope was used to search for high-energy gamma-ray emission from the Crab Nebula and pulsar. A statistical excess of 4.07sigma in the number of on-source events compared to off-source events was detected in 15 hours of on-source observing time, corresponding to an integral flux above the energy threshold (Ethr = 185 +/- 35 GeV) of I(E > Ethr) = (2.5 +/- 0.6) x 10-10 photons cm -2 s-1. The observed flux is in agreement with the previous result obtained by STACEE-32 and consistent with the power law spectrum seen at higher energies. A special instrument was developed to make simultaneous observations of the Crab in the optical and gamma-ray bands. Pulsed emission was detected in the optical band, demonstrating the accuracy of the barycentering and epoch folding analysis tools. After barycentering the arrival times and calculating the rotational phases of gamma-ray events, no evidence for pulsed emission from the Crab pulsar was found. The upper limit on the pulsed fraction of the signal was 16.4% at the 99.9% confidence level. Unfortunately, neither the polar cap model, nor the outer gap model is excluded by this new upper limit.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.85908 |
| Date | January 2005 |
| Creators | Fortin, Pascal |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Doctor of Philosophy (Department of Physics.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 002293843, proquestno: AAINR21645, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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