VHE Excess and Cascade Gamma Rays
Kohta Murase (OSU/CCAPP)
Recent observations of the isotropic diffuse background by Fermi/IceCube allow us to get more insight into distant very-high-energy (VHE) and ultra-high-energy (UHE) gamma-ray/neutrino emitters, including cosmic-ray accelerators/sources. We focus on the contribution of intergalactic cascades induced by gamma-rays and/or cosmic rays (CRs) to the diffuse gamma-ray background (DGB) in view of the latest Fermi data. We identify a possible VHE Excess from the fact that the Fermi data are well above expectations for an attenuated power law, and show that cascades induced by VHE gamma rays (above ~10 TeV) and/or VHECRs (below ~10^19 eV) may significantly contribute to the DGB above ~100 GeV. The relevance of the cascades is also motivated by possible VHE excesses found in TeV blazars such as 1ES 0229+200, which may suggest very hard intrinsic spectra. We discuss their connections and show the importance of future detailed VHE DGB measurements.
Survey-only discovery of the planet in the microlensing event MOA 2011-BLG-028/OGLE-2011-BLG-0203
Jan Skowron (OSU/Astronomy)
I will present the analysis of the Neptun-class planet discovered in the curse of the microlensing event observed by the survey telescopes. MOA Telescope in New Zeleand and OGLE Telescope in Las Campanas, Chile are dedicated microlensing facilities that have recently received upgrades and are now capable of characterizing short-time deviations in the light curves of the microlensing events and, thus, discovering planets in regular survey cadence. The discussed planet is one of the first discovered in that mode. I will give estimates on the mass of the planet, distance from its host and position in the Galaxy.
