We report on the highest energy photons from the Crab Nebula observed by the Tibet air shower array with the underground water-Cherenkov-type muon detector array. Based on the criterion of… Click to show full abstract
We report on the highest energy photons from the Crab Nebula observed by the Tibet air shower array with the underground water-Cherenkov-type muon detector array. Based on the criterion of a muon number measured in an air shower, we successfully suppress 99.92% of the cosmic-ray background events with energies E>100 TeV. As a result, we observed 24 photonlike events with E>100 TeV against 5.5 background events, which corresponds to a 5.6σ statistical significance. This is the first detection of photons with E>100 TeV from an astrophysical source.
               
Click one of the above tabs to view related content.