Crab Nebula: five-year observation with ARGO-YBJ

Abstract

The ARGO-YBJ air shower detector monitored the Crab Nebula gamma ray emission from 2007 November to 2013 February. The integrated signal, consisting of $\sim$3.3 $\times$ 10$^5$ events,reached the statistical significance of 21.1 standard deviations. The obtained energy spectrum in the energy range 0.3-20 TeV can be described by a power law function dN/dE = I$_0$ (E / 2 TeV)$^{-\alpha}$, with a flux normalization I$_0$ = (5.2 $\pm$ 0.2) $\times$ 10$^{-12}$ photons cm$^{-2}$ s$^{-1}$ TeV$^{-1}$ and $\alpha$ = 2.63 $\pm$ 0.05, corresponding to an integrated flux above 1 TeV of 1.97 $\times$ 10$^{-11}$ photons cm$^{-2}$ s$^{-1}$. The systematic error is estimated to be less than 30$\%$ for the flux normalization and 0.06 for the spectral index. Assuming a power law spectrum with an exponential cutoff dN/dE = I$_0$ (E / 2 TeV)$^{-\alpha}$ $\exp$ (-E / E$_{cut}$), the lower limit of the cutoff energy E$_{cut}$ is 12 TeV, at 90$\%$ confidence level. Our extended dataset allows the study of the TeV emission over long timescales. Over five years, the light curve of the Crab Nebula in 200-day bins is compatible with a steady emission with a probability of 7.3 $\times$ 10$^{-2}$. A correlated analysis with Fermi-LAT data over $\sim$4.5 years using the light curves of the two experiments gives a Pearson correlation coefficient $r$ = 0.56 $\pm$ 0.22. Concerning flux variations on timescales of days, a "blind" search for flares with a duration of 1-15 days gives no excess with a significance higher than four standard deviations. The average rate measured by ARGO-YBJ during the three most powerful flares detected by Fermi-LAT is 205 $\pm$ 91 photons day$^{-1}$, consistent with the average value of 137 $\pm$ 10 day$^{-1}$.