On the burst activity of the Crab Nebula, as observed by air shower arrays
Recent experiments with the Fermi-LAT and AGILE satellite gamma-ray telescopes, in which bursts of gamma-rays from the Crab Nebula were detected in the energy range of ∼100 MeV, have aroused keen interest, if not a sensation. However, data on a possible burst in the Crab Nebula at much higher energies of ∼100 TeV were published more than 20 years ago. Characteristics of transient and stationary fluxes of gamma rays from the Crab Nebula in various energy ranges are discussed in this work, and it is shown that the old data obtained at ultra-high energies is reasonably consistent with the latest pattern of the source’s burst activity.