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Search for Pulsed TeV Gamma-ray Emission from the Crab Pulsar
Lang, Mark; Gillanders, Gary; Lessard, R. W.; Bond, I. H.; Bradbury, S. M.; Buckley, J. H.; Burdett, A. M.; Carter-Lewis, D. A.; Catanese, M.; Cawley, M. F.; D'Vali, M.; Fegan, D. J.; Finley, J. P.; Gaidos, J. A.; Gillanders, G. H.; Hall, T.; Hillas, A. M.; Krennrich, F.; Lang, M. J.; Masterson, C.; Moriarty, P.; Quinn, J.; Rose, H. J.; Samuelson, F. W.; Sembroski, G. H.; Srinivasan, R.; Vassiliev, V. V.; Weekes, T. C.
We present the results of a search for pulsed TeV emission from the Crab pulsar using the Whipple Observatory's 10 m gamma-ray telescope. The direction of the Crab pulsar was observed for a total of 73.4 hours between 1994 November and 1997 March. During this period the Whipple 10 m telescope was operated at its lowest energy threshold to date. Spectral analysis techniques were applied to search for the presence of a gamma-ray signal from the Crab pulsar over the energy band 250 GeV to 4 TeV. We do not see any evidence of the 33 ms pulsations present in other energy bands from the Crab pulsar. The 99.9% confidence level upper limit for pulsed emission above 250 GeV is derived to be 4.8x10^-12 cm^-2 s^-1 or <3% of the steady flux from the Crab Nebula. These results imply a sharp cut-off of the power-law spectrum seen by the EGRET instrument on the Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory. If the cut-off is exponential, it must begin at 60 GeV or lower to accommodate these upper limits.