Upper limits on the isotropic diffuse flux of cosmic PeV photons from Carpet-2 observations
D. D. Dzhappuev+, Yu. Z. Afashokov+, I. M. Dzaparova+*, T. A. Dzhatdoev+×, E. A. Gorbacheva+, I. S. Karpikov+, M. M. Khadzhiev+, N. F. Klimenko+, A. U. Kudzhaev+, A. N. Kurenya+, A. S. Lidvansky+, O. I. Mikhailova+, V. B. Petkov+*, E. I. Podlesnyi×+, N. A. Pozdnukhov×+, V. S. Romanenko+, G. I. Rubtsov+, S. V. Troitsky+×, I. B. Unatlokov+, I. A. Vaiman+, A. F. Yanin+, K. V. Zhuravleva+ (Carpet-2 Group)
+Institute for Nuclear Research of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 117312 Moscow, Russia
*Institute of Astronomy, Russian Academy of Sciences, 119017 Moscow, Russia
×M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University, 119991 Moscow, Russia
Abstract
Isotropic diffuse gamma-ray flux in the PeV energy band is an
important tool for multimessenger tests of models of the origin of high-energy
astrophysical neutrinos and for new-physics searches. So far, this
flux has not yet been observed. Carpet-2 is an air-shower experiment
capable of detecting astrophysical gamma rays with energies above
0.1 PeV. Here we report the upper limits on the isotropic gamma-ray flux
from Carpet-2 data obtained in 1999-2011 and 2018-2022. These results,
obtained with the new statistical method based on the shape of the muon-number
distribution, summarize Carpet-2 observations as the upgraded
installation, Carpet-3, starts its operation.