Recent Results of the Milagro Experiment

To date, our most important published observational results with Milagro have been: • The first detection of TeV gamma rays from the Galactic plane [1], • The mapping of the diffuse Galactic gamma-ray emission at TeV energies, including the detection of the Cygnus Region at high-significance (over 10 ) [2] • The discovery of a new (slightly extended) source (MGRO J2019+37) of TeV gamma rays embedded in the Cygnus Region [3], • The possible detection of a gamma-ray burst with our prototype instrument Milagrito [4]. In addition, we have detected TeV gamma rays from the active galaxies Mrk 501 [5], Mrk 421 [6] plus the Crab Nebula [7], set stringent upper limits on the prompt TeV emission from several gamma ray bursts [8], and performed the most sensitive survey of the northern hemisphere at TeV energies [6]. In this document we will review these results, plus show new results on two more newly discovered sources that have been presented at meetings. In addition, we show four more potential sources that are detected with >4.5 , slightly less than the 5 post trials threshold we set for discovery. It should be noted that the most exciting discoveries from Milagro have been published since our 2005 review. Figure 1 shows the significant improvement that we have made in the last view years with the addition of the outrigger counters and improved gamma-hadron separation and data analysis.