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Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are brief flashes of γ-rays and are considered to be the most energetic explosive phenomena in the Universe1. The emission from GRBs comprises a short (typically tens of seconds) and bright prompt emission, followed by a much longer afterglow phase. During the afterglow phase, the shocked outflow—produced by the interaction between the ejected matter and the circumburst medium—slows down, and a gradual decrease in brightness is observed2. GRBs typically emit most of their energy via γ-rays with energies in the kiloelectronvolt-to-megaelectronvolt range, but a few photons with energies of tens of gigaelectronvolts have been detected by space-based instruments3. However, the origins of such high-energy (above one gigaelectronvolt) photons and the presence of very-high-energy (more than 100 gigaelectronvolts) emission have remained elusive4. Here we report observations of very-high-energy emission in the bright GRB 180720B deep in the GRB afterglow—ten hours after the end of the prompt emission phase, when the X-ray flux had already decayed by four orders of magnitude. Two possible explanations exist for the observed radiation: inverse Compton emission and synchrotron emission of ultrarelativistic electrons. Our observations show that the energy fluxes in the X-ray and γ-ray range and their photon indices remain comparable to each other throughout the afterglow. This discovery places distinct constraints on the GRB environment for both emission mechanisms, with the inverse Compton explanation alleviating the particle energy requirements for the emission observed at late times. The late timing of this detection has consequences for the future observations of GRBs at the highest energies

Galactic cosmic rays reach energies of at least a few petaelectronvolts1 (of the order of 1015 electronvolts). This implies that our Galaxy contains petaelectronvolt accelerators (‘PeVatrons’), but all proposed models of Galactic cosmic-ray accelerators encounter difficulties at exactly these energies2. Dozens of Galactic accelerators capable of accelerating particles to energies of tens of teraelectronvolts (of the order of 1013 electronvolts) were inferred from recent γ-ray observations3. However, none of the currently known accelerators—not even the handful of shell-type supernova remnants commonly believed to supply most Galactic cosmic rays—has shown the characteristic tracers of petaelectronvolt particles, namely, power-law spectra of γ-rays extending without a cut-off or a spectral break to tens of teraelectronvolts4. Here we report deep γ-ray observations with arcminute angular resolution of the region surrounding the Galactic Centre, which show the expected tracer of the presence of petaelectronvolt protons within the central 10 parsecs of the Galaxy. We propose that the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A* is linked to this PeVatron. Sagittarius A* went through active phases in the past, as demonstrated by X-ray outbursts5and an outflow from the Galactic Centre6. Although its current rate of particle acceleration is not sufficient to provide a substantial contribution to Galactic cosmic rays, Sagittarius A* could have plausibly been more active over the last 106–107 years, and therefore should be considered as a viable alternative to supernova remnants as a source of petaelectronvolt Galactic cosmic rays.

The nearby radio galaxy Centaurus A belongs to a class of active galaxies that are luminous at radio wavelengths. Most show collimated relativistic outflows known as jets, which extend over hundreds of thousands of parsecs for the most powerful sources. Accretion of matter onto the central supermassive black hole is believed to fuel these jets and power their emission 1 . Synchrotron radiation from relativistic electrons causes the radio emission, and it has been suggested that the X-ray emission from Centaurus A also originates in electron synchrotron processes 2 – 4 . Another possible explanation is inverse Compton scattering with cosmic microwave background (CMB) soft photons 5 – 7 . Synchrotron radiation needs ultrarelativistic electrons (about 50 teraelectronvolts) and, given their short cooling times, requires some continuous re-acceleration mechanism 8 . Inverse Compton scattering, on the other hand, does not require very energetic electrons, but the jets must stay highly relativistic on large scales (exceeding 1 megaparsec). Some recent evidence disfavours inverse Compton-CMB models 9 – 12 , although other work seems to be compatible with them 13 , 14 . In principle, the detection of extended γ-ray emission, which directly probes the presence of ultrarelativistic electrons, could distinguish between these options. At gigaelectronvolt energies there is also an unusual spectral hardening 15 , 16 in Centaurus A that has not yet been explained. Here we report observations of Centaurus A at teraelectronvolt energies that resolve its large-scale jet. We interpret the data as evidence for the acceleration of ultrarelativistic electrons in the jet, and favour the synchrotron explanation for the X-rays. Given that this jet is not exceptional in terms of power, length or speed, it is possible that ultrarelativistic electrons are commonplace in the large-scale jets of radio-loud active galaxies. Observations of the radio galaxy Centaurus A at teraelectronvolt energies resolve its large-scale jet and favour electron synchrotron processes as the source of its X-ray emission.

Starburst galaxies exhibit in their central regions a highly increased rate of supernovae, the remnants of which are thought to accelerate energetic cosmic rays up to energies of ~1015 electron volts. We report the detection of gamma rays—tracers of such cosmic rays—from the starburst galaxy NGC 253 using the High Energy Stereoscopic System (H.E.S.S.) array of imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes. The gamma-ray flux above 220 billion electron volts is F = (5.5 ± 1.0stat ± 2.8sys) × 10−13 cm−2 s−1, implying a cosmic-ray density about three orders of magnitude larger than that in the center of the Milky Way. The fraction of cosmic-ray energy channeled into gamma rays in this starburst environment is five times as large as that in our Galaxy

Subdued lighting The diffuse light permeating intergalactic space contains precious information about the early Universe. Exactly what information is a matter of conjecture: light from the first stars, perhaps, or direct starlight from later galaxies? Gamma-ray observations of two distant active galaxies with HESS, the High Energy Stereoscopic System array in Namibia, reveal that the diffuse light intensity is lower than expected from recent claims. This suggests that the Universe is more transparent to γ-rays than was thought, and favours galaxies as the dominant light source, rather than early stars. The diffuse extragalactic background light consists of the sum of the starlight emitted by galaxies through the history of the Universe, and it could also have an important contribution from the ‘first stars’, which may have formed before galaxy formation began. Direct measurements are difficult and not yet conclusive, owing to the large uncertainties caused by the bright foreground emission associated with zodiacal light 1 . An alternative approach 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 is to study the absorption features imprinted on the γ-ray spectra of distant extragalactic objects by interactions of those photons with the background light photons 6 . Here we report the discovery of γ-ray emission from the blazars 7 H 2356 - 309 and 1ES 1101 - 232, at redshifts z = 0.165 and z = 0.186, respectively. Their unexpectedly hard spectra provide an upper limit on the background light at optical/near-infrared wavelengths that appears to be very close to the lower limit given by the integrated light of resolved galaxies 8 . The background flux at these wavelengths accordingly seems to be strongly dominated by the direct starlight from galaxies, thus excluding a large contribution from other sources—in particular from the first stars formed 9 . This result also indicates that intergalactic space is more transparent to γ-rays than previously thought.

Central issues Events at the centre of our Galaxy are key to our understanding of high-energy processes in the Universe, since it contains examples of virtually every type of exotic object known to astronomers. The very-high-energy γ-ray emission from the Galactic Centre region has now been measured using HESS, the High Energy Stereoscopic System recently constructed in Namibia, South West Africa. HESS operates at energies above the regime accessible to satellite-based detectors, taking γ-ray astronomy into new territory. The results show that these clouds are glowing in very high energy γ-rays. The glow is caused by constant bombardment of the clouds by cosmic rays — probably protons and nuclei — produced close to the central black hole or in the expanding blast waves of supernova explosions. The source of Galactic cosmic rays (with energies up to 10 15  eV) remains unclear, although it is widely believed that they originate in the shock waves of expanding supernova remnants 1 , 2 . At present the best way to investigate their acceleration and propagation is by observing the γ-rays produced when cosmic rays interact with interstellar gas 3 . Here we report observations of an extended region of very-high-energy (> 10 11  eV) γ-ray emission correlated spatially with a complex of giant molecular clouds in the central 200 parsecs of the Milky Way. The hardness of the γ-ray spectrum and the conditions in those molecular clouds indicate that the cosmic rays giving rise to the γ-rays are likely to be protons and nuclei rather than electrons. The energy associated with the cosmic rays could have come from a single supernova explosion around 10 4 years ago.

The detection of fast variations of the tera-electron volt (TeV) (10¹² eV) γ-ray flux, on time scales of days, from the nearby radio galaxy M87 is reported. These variations are about 10 times as fast as those observed in any other wave band and imply a very compact emission region with a dimension similar to the Schwarzschild radius of the central black hole. We thus can exclude several other sites and processes of the γ-ray production. The observations confirm that TeV γ rays are emitted by extragalactic sources other than blazars, where jets are not relativistically beamed toward the observer.

Cross sections for elastic production of J/ψ mesons in photoproduction and electroproduction are measured in electron proton collisions at HERA using an integrated luminosity of 55 pb-1. Results are presented for photon virtualities Q2 up to 80 GeV2. The dependence on the photon-proton centre of mass energy Wγp is analysed in the range 40≤Wγp≤305 GeV in photoproduction and 40≤Wγp≤160 GeV in electroproduction. The Wγp dependences of the cross sections do not change significantly with Q2 and can be described by models based on perturbative QCD. Within such models, the data show a high sensitivity to the gluon density of the proton in the domain of low Bjorken x and low Q2. Differential cross sections dσ/dt, where t is the squared four-momentum transfer at the proton vertex, are measured in the range |t|<1.2 GeV2 as functions of Wγp and Q2. Effective Pomeron trajectories are determined for photoproduction and electroproduction. The J/ψ production and decay angular distributions are consistent with s-channel helicity conservation. The ratio of the cross sections for longitudinally and transversely polarised photons is measured as a function of Q2 and is found to be described by perturbative QCD based models.

A significant fraction of the energy density of the interstellar medium is in the form of high-energy charged particles (cosmic rays) 1 . The origin of these particles remains uncertain. Although it is generally accepted that the only sources capable of supplying the energy required to accelerate the bulk of Galactic cosmic rays are supernova explosions, and even though the mechanism of particle acceleration in expanding supernova remnant (SNR) shocks is thought to be well understood theoretically 2 , 3 , unequivocal evidence for the production of high-energy particles in supernova shells has proven remarkably hard to find. Here we report on observations of the SNR RX J1713.7 - 3946 (G347.3 - 0.5), which was discovered by ROSAT 4 in the X-ray spectrum and later claimed as a source of high-energy γ-rays 5 , 6 of TeV energies (1 TeV = 10 12  eV). We present a TeV γ-ray image of the SNR: the spatially resolved remnant has a shell morphology similar to that seen in X-rays, which demonstrates that very-high-energy particles are accelerated there. The energy spectrum indicates efficient acceleration of charged particles to energies beyond 100 TeV, consistent with current ideas of particle acceleration in young SNR shocks.

Very high energy γ-rays probe the long-standing mystery of the origin of cosmic rays. Produced in the interactions of accelerated particles in astrophysical objects, they can be used to image cosmic particle accelerators. A first sensitive survey of the inner part of the Milky Way with the High Energy Stereoscopic System (HESS) reveals a population of eight previously unknown firmly detected sources of very high energy γ-rays. At least two have no known radio or x-ray counterpart and may be representative of a new class of \"dark\" nucleonic cosmic ray sources.