Search

Milagro is a large field of view (∼ 2 sr), high duty cycle (∼90%), ground‐based observatory sensitive to gamma‐rays above ∼100 GeV. This unique detector is ideal for observing the highest energy gamma‐rays from gamma‐ray bursts. The highest energy gamma rays supply very strong constraints on the nature of gamma‐ray burst sources as well as fundamental physics. Because the highest energy gamma‐rays are attenuated by pair production with the extragalactic infrared background light, Milagro’s sensitivity decreases rapidly for bursts with redshift > 0.5. While only 10 % of bursts have been measured to be within z=0.5, these bursts are very well studied at all wavelengths resulting in the most complete understanding of GRB phenomena. Milagro has sufficient sensitivity in units of E2 dN/dE to detect VHE luminosities lower than the observed luminosities at ∼ 100 keV for these nearby bursts. Therefore, the launch of SWIFT and its ability to localize and measure redshifts of many bursts points to great future poss...

The Milagro water Cherenkov detector began full operation in January 2000. This detector is capable of monitoring the Northern sky at energies above 500 GeV for sources of equivalent strength to the Crab Nebula over one year of integration. We report on the current performance and sensitivity of Milagro.

A new type of very high energy (> a few 100 GeV) gamma-ray observatory, Milagro, has been built with a large field of view of >1 steradian and nearly 24 hours/day operation. Milagrito, a prototype for Milagro, was operated from February 1997 to May 1998. During the summer of 1998, Milagrito was dismantled and Milagro was built. Both detectors use a 80 m×60 m×8 m pond of water in which a 3 m×3 m grid of photomultiplier tubes detects the Cherenkov light produced in the water by the relativistic particles in extensive air showers. Milagrito was smaller and had only one layer of photomultipliers, but allowed the technique to be tested. Milagrito observations of the Moon’s shadow and Mrk 501 are consistent with the Monte Carlo prediction of the telescopes parameters, such as effective area and angular resolution. Milagro is larger and consists of two layers of photomultiplier tubes. The bottom layer detects penetrating particles that are used to reject the background of cosmic-ray initiated showers.

This paper describes how data from a new type of air shower detector, MILAGRO, can shed light on a variety of interesting problems in astrophysics. MILAGRO has the capability to make observations of VHE/UHE emission from the recently discovered TeV gamma‐ray source Markarian 421, an Active Galactic Nucleus (AGN). An observation of the attenuation of this signal in the range of 1–20 TeV can be used to make the first measurement of the intergalactic infrared radiation. We will also describe how MILAGRO can improve the existing limits on the density of Primordial Black Holes (PBH) by three orders of magnitude. In addition, MILAGRO will have a large aperture and continuous operation which gives it the capability to search for VHE gamma ray bursts.