EGRET Upper Limits on the High-Energy Gamma-Ray Emission of Galaxy Clusters

By O. Reimer, M. Pohl, P. Sreekumar, J. Mattox. 2003

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We report EGRET upper limits on the high-energy gamma-ray emission from clusters of galaxies. EGRET observations between 1991 and 2000 were analyzed at positions of 58 individual clusters from a flux-limited sample of nearby X-ray-bright galaxy clusters. Subsequently, a co-added image from individual galaxy clusters has been analyzed using an adequately adapted diffuse gamma-ray foreground model. The resulting upper 2 σ limit for the average cluster is ~6 × 10-9 cm-2 s-1 for E > 100 MeV. Implications of the nondetection of prominent individual clusters and of the general inability to detect the X-ray-brightest galaxy clusters as a class of gamma-ray emitters are discussed. We compare our results with model predictions on the high-energy gamma-ray emission from galaxy clusters as well as with recent claims of an association between unidentified or unresolved gamma-ray sources and Abell clusters of galaxies and find these contradictory.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Nuclear and High Energy Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/dd44aca40593ea3c8f2136f9d21112fddd77adb7

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Citations in the corpus

Simulating cosmic rays in clusters of galaxies – II. A unified scheme for radio haloes and relics with predictions of the γ-ray emission (2007, background): “It has been proposed that a fractionof the diffuse cosmologicalγ-ray background radiation originates from the same processes (Loeb & Waxman 2000; Miniati 2002; Reimer et al. 2003; Berrington & Dermer 2003; Kuo et al. 2005).”
Acceleration of primary and secondary particles in galaxy clusters by compressible MHD turbulence: from radio haloes to gamma-rays (2010, background): “…2004, Rossetti & Molendi 2004; RXTE, Rephaeli et al 1999; INTEGRAL, Eckert et al 2007, Lutovinov et al 2008; Suzaku, Wik et al 2009; Swift-BAT, Ajello et al 2009) and gamma ray (EGRET, Reimer et al 2003; FERMI, Ackermann et al 2010; HESS, Aharonian et al 2009b; VERITAS, Perkins 2008) observations.”
SEARCH FOR COSMIC-RAY-INDUCED GAMMA-RAY EMISSION IN GALAXY CLUSTERS (2013, background): “Previous reports of space-based cluster observations in the GeV band include Reimer et al. 2003; Ackermann et al. 2010b; Zimmer et al. 2011; Ando & Nagai 2012; Han et al. 2012.”
Diffuse Radio Emission from Galaxy Clusters (2019, background): “The quest for the detection of these gamma-rays have been going on for about two decades now (Reimer et al. 2003; Reimer & Sreekumar 2004; Aharonian et al. 2009; Ackermann et al. 2010; Aleksić et al. 2010; Arlen et al. 2012; Huber et al. 2012, 2013; Ackermann et al. 2014; Zandanel & Ando 2014;…”
Alfvénic reacceleration of relativistic particles in galaxy clusters: MHD waves, leptons and hadrons (2003, background): “Nevertheless, the gamma radiation that would allow us to infer the fraction of relativistic hadrons in clusters has not been detected as yet (Reimer et al. 2003).”
Constraining the population of cosmic ray protons in cooling flow clusters with γ-ray and radio observations: Are radio mini-halos of hadronic origin? (2003, methodology): “3.3.2 we constrained the CRp scaling parameterXCRp using EGRET upper limits of theγ-ray flux by Reimer et al. (2003).”
FERMI DISCOVERY OF GAMMA-RAY EMISSION FROM NGC 1275 (2009, background): “Further observations in the MeV-GeV range were made byCGRO/EGRET in the 1990’s as part of a search forγ- ay emission from 58 clusters of galaxies between 1991 and 2000 (Reimer et al. 2003).”
Cosmological Shock Waves and Their Role in the Large-Scale Structure of the Universe (2003, background): “…confirmed by the observation of γ-ray photons produced by inelastic collisions between CR and thermal-gas protons (see, e.g., Miniati et al. 2001b; Reimer et al. 2003), there may very well exist CR proton populations there whose pressure is comparable to the gas thermal pressure (Enßlin et al.…”
FERMI LARGE AREA TELESCOPE GAMMA-RAY DETECTION OF THE RADIO GALAXY M87 (2009, methodology): “The flux was extrapolated down to 100 MeV to facilitate comparison with the previous EGRET non-detection of< 2.18 × 10−8 ph cm−2 s−1 (2σ) from observations spanning the 1990’s (Reimer et al. 2003).”
THE LARGE AREA TELESCOPE ON THE FERMI GAMMA-RAY SPACE TELESCOPE MISSION (2009, background): “Galaxy clusters emitting high-energyγ-rays are, although well hypothesized, observationally not yet established emitters in the GeV sky (Reimer et al. 2003).”
Detecting shock waves in cosmological smoothed particle hydrodynamics simulations (2006, background): “It has been proposed that a fraction of the diffuse cosmologicalγray background radiation originates from the same processes (Loeb & Waxman 2000; Miniati 2002; Reimer et al. 2003; Berrington & Dermer 2003; Kuo et al. 2005).”