First Emulsion -Ray Telescope Imaging of the Vela Pulsar by the GRAINE 2018 Balloon-borne Experiment

We are developing the Gamma-Ray Astro-Imager with Nuclear Emulsion project, designed for 10 MeV-100 GeV cosmic gamma-ray observations with a high angular resolution (5 '/0.degrees 08 at 1-2 GeV) and a polarization-sensitive large-aperture (similar to 10 m(2)) emulsion telescope for repeated long-duration balloon flights. In 2018, a balloon-borne experiment was carried out in Australia with a 0.38 m(2) sensitive area and a flight duration of 17.4 hr, including 6.7 hr of Vela observations. Significant improvements compared with the 2015 balloon-borne experiment were achieved by a factor of 5, including both an increase in effective area x time and a reduction in the background contribution. We aimed to demonstrate the telescope's overall performance based on detection and imaging of a known gamma-ray source, the Vela pulsar. A robust detection of the Vela pulsar was achieved with a 68% containment radius of 0.degrees 42, at a significance of 6 sigma, at energies above 80 MeV. The resulting angular profile is consistent with that of a pointlike source. We achieved the current best imaging performance of the Vela pulsar using an emulsion gamma-ray telescope with the highest angular resolution of any gamma-ray telescope to date.