Date of Award

12-16-2009

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Applied Science

First Advisor

Tony Hall

Abstract

LSI+61°303 is a member of a small class of X-ray binary stars that are also sources of strong radio emission. It has been detected as a periodic radio source with the NRAO Very Large Array, a magnitude 10.7 B0 star, a 0.5-5 keV X-ray source by the Einstein X-ray satellite and may be associated with an unidentified 100 MeV γ-ray source discovered by the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory satellite. Theories exist which suggest that binary systems are capable of emitting γ-rays at energies > 100 GeV. A similar system, PSR B1259-63, has been found to emit γ-rays at TeV energies. In this study, results are presented on the observations from 2004 to 2007 of LSI+61°303 by the Whipple 10 m Gamma-Ray Telescope. The dataset was analyzed for γ-ray emission and orbital phase dependence in γ-ray emission. The results were also compared to data collected by the RXTE satellite and VERITAS.

Download

Share

COinS