TeV-flaring activity with timescales as short as tens of minutes and an orphan TeV flare have been observed from the blazar Markarian 421 (Mrk 421). The TeV emission from Mrk 421 is believed to be produced by leptonic synchrotron self-Compton (SSC) emission. In this scenario, correlations between the X-ray and the TeV fluxes are expected, TeV orphan flares are hardly explained, and the activity (measured as duty cycle) of the source at TeV energies is expected to be equal to or less than that observed in X-rays if only SSC is considered. To estimate the TeV duty cycle of Mrk 421 and to establish limits on its variability at different timescales, we continuously observed Mrk 421 with the Milagro observatory. Mrk 421 was detected by Milagro with a statistical significance of 7.1 standard deviations between 2005 September 21 and 2008 March 15. The observed spectrum is consistent with previous observations by VERITAS. We estimate the duty cycle of Mrk 421 for energies above 1 TeV for different hypotheses of the baseline flux and for different flare selections and we compared our results with the X-ray duty cycle estimated by Resconi et al. The robustness of the results is discussed. © 2014. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved..

Milagrito, a detector sensitive to gamma-rays at TeV energies, monitored the northern sky during the period February 1997 through May 1998. With a large field of view and high duty cycle, this instrument was used to perform a search for TeV counterparts to gamma-ray bursts. Within the Milagrito field of view 54 gamma-ray bursts at keV energies were observed by the Burst And Transient Satellite Experiment (BATSE) aboard the Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory. This paper describes the results of a preliminary analysis to search for TeV emission correlated with BATSE detected bursts. Milagrito detected an excess of events coincident both spatially and temporally with GRB 970417a, with chance probability $2.8 \times 10^{-5}$ within the BATSE error radius. No other significant correlations were detected. Since 54 bursts were examined the chance probability of observing an excess with this significance in any of these bursts is $1.5 \times 10^{-3}$. The statistical aspects and physical implications of this result are discussed.

This paper reports the results from three targeted searches of Milagro TeV sky maps: two extragalactic point source lists and one pulsar source list. The first extragalactic candidate list consists of 709 candidates selected from the Fermi-LAT 2FGL catalog. The second extragalactic candidate list contains 31 candidates selected from the TeVCat source catalog that have been detected by imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes (IACTs). In both extragalactic candidate lists Mkn 421 was the only source detected by Milagro. This paper presents the Milagro TeV flux for Mkn 421 and flux limits for the brighter Fermi-LAT extragalactic sources and for all TeVCat candidates. The pulsar list extends a previously published Milagro targeted search for Galactic sources. With the 32 new gamma-ray pulsars identified in 2FGL, the number of pulsars that are studied by both Fermi-LAT and Milagro is increased to 52. In this sample, we find that the probability of Milagro detecting a TeV emission coincident with a pulsar increases with the GeV flux observed by the Fermi-LAT in the energy range from 0.1 GeV to 100 GeV. © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Previous works have shown that water Cherenkov detectors have superior sensitivity to those of scintillation counters as applied to detecting extensive air showers (EAS). This is in large part due to their much higher sensitivity to EAS photons which are more than five times more numerous than EAS electrons. Large area water Cherenkov detectors can be constructed relatively cheaply and operated reliably. A sparse detector array has been designed which uses these types of detectors to substantially increase the area over which the Milagro Gamma Ray Observatory collects EAS information. Improvements to the Milagro detector's performance characteristics and sensitivity derived from this array and preliminary results from a prototype array currently installed near the Milagro detector will be presented.

Milagrito, a prototype for the Milagro detector, operated for 15 months in 1997-8 and collected 8.9 billion events. It was the first extensive air shower (EAS) array sensitive to showers intiated by primaries with energy below 1 TeV. The shadows of the sun and moon observed with cosmic rays can be used to study systematic pointing shifts and measure the angular resolution of EAS arrays. Below a few TeV, the paths of cosmic rays coming toward the earth are bent by the helio- and geo-magnetic fields. This is expected to distort and displace the shadows of the sun and the moon. The moon shadow, offset from the nominal (undeflected) position, has been observed with high statistical significance in Milagrito. This can be used to establish energy calibrations, as well as to search for the anti-matter content of the VHE cosmic ray flux. The shadow of the sun has also been observed with high significance.

Observing gamma ray bursts (GRBs) in the TeV energy range can be extremely valuable in providing insight to GRB radiation mechanisms and in constraining source distances. The Milagrito detector was an air shower array which used the water Cherenkov technique to search for TeV sources. Data from this detector was analyzed to look for a TeV component of GRBs coincident with low energy -rays detected by the BATSE instrument on the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory. A sample of 54 BATSE GRBs which were in the field of view of the Milagrito detector during its lifetime (February 1997 to May 1998) was used.