OBSERVATION OF GAMMA RAYS FROM THE GALACTIC CENTER WITH THE M TELESCOPE

Recently, the Galactic Center has been reported to be a source of very high energy (VHE) -rays by the VERITAS, CANGAROO and HESS experiments. The energy spectra as measured by these experiments show substantial differences. In this Letter we present MAGIC observations of the Galactic Center, result- ing in the detection of a differential -ray flux consistent with a steady, hard-slope power law, des cribed as dN/(dAdtdE) = (2.9 ± 0.6) × 10 −12 (E/TeV) −2.2±0.2 cm −2 s −1 TeV −1 . The -ray source is centered at (Ra, Dec)=(17 h 45 m 20 s , -29 ◦ 2 ' ). This result confirms the previous measurements by the HESS experiment and indicates a steady source of TeV -rays. We briefly describe the observational technique used , the procedure implemented for the data analysis, and discuss the results i n the perspective of different models proposed for the acceleration of the VHE -rays. Subject headings:gamma rays: observation — Galaxy: center — acceleration of particles