VERITAS Upper Limit on the VHE Emission from the Radio Galaxy NGC 1275

VERITAS Collaboration, V. A. Acciari, E. Aliu, T. Arlen, T. Aune, M. Bautista, M. Beilicke, W. Benbow, D. Boltuch, S. M. Bradbury, J. H. Buckley, V. Bugaev, K. Byrum, A. Cannon, O. Celik, A. Cesarini, L. Ciupik, P. Cogan, W. Cui, R. Dickherber, C. Duke, S. J. Fegan, J. P. Finley, P. Fortin, L. Fortson, A. Furniss, N. Galante, D. Gall, K. Gibbs, G. H. Gillanders, S. Godambe, J. Grube, R. Guenette, G. Gyuk, D. Hanna, J. Holder, D. Horan, C. M. Hui, T. B. Humensky, A. Imran, P. Kaaret, N. Karlsson, M. Kertzman, D. Kieda, A. Konopelko, H. Krawczynski, F. Krennrich, M. J. Lang, S. LeBohec, G. Maier, A. McCann, M. McCutcheon, J. Millis, P. Moriarty, R. Mukherjee, R. A. Ong, A. N. Otte, D. Pandel, J. S. Perkins, M. Pohl, J. Quinn, K. Ragan, P. T. Reynolds, E. Roache, H. J. Rose, M. Schroedter, G. H. Sembroski, A. W. Smith, D. Steele, S. P. Swordy, M. Theiling, J. A. Toner, A. Varlotta, V. V. Vassiliev, S. Vincent, R. G. Wagner, S. P. Wakely, J. E. Ward, T. C. Weekes, A. Weinstein, T. Weisgarber, D. A. Williams, S. Wissel, M. Wood, B. Zitzer, for the VERITAS Collaboration, J. Kataoka, E. Cavazzuti, C. C. Cheung, B. Lott, D. J. Thompson, G. Tosti, for the Fermi Collaboration

Published 2009-11-04Version 1

The recent detection by the Fermi gamma-ray space telescope of high-energy gamma-rays from the radio galaxy NGC 1275 makes the observation of the very high energy (VHE: E > 100 GeV) part of its broadband spectrum particularly interesting, especially for the understanding of active galactic nuclei (AGN) with misaligned multi-structured jets. The radio galaxy NGC 1275 was recently observed by VERITAS at energies above 100 GeV for about 8 hours. No VHE gamma-ray emission was detected by VERITAS from NGC 1275. A 99% confidence level upper limit of 2.1% of the Crab Nebula flux level is obtained at the decorrelation energy of approximately 340 GeV, corresponding to 19% of the power-law extrapolation of the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) result.