The Galactic Center region imaged by VERITAS

The Galactic Center has long been a region of interest for high-energy and very-high-energy observations. Many potential sources of GeV/TeV γ - ray emission have been suggested, e.g., the accretion of matter onto the black hole, cosmic rays from a nearby supernova remnant, or the annihilation of dark matter particles. The Galactic Center has been detected at MeV/GeV energies by EGRET and recently by Fermi/LAT. At GeV/TeV energies, the Galactic Center was detected by different ground-based Cherenkov telescopes such as CANGAROO, Whipple 10 m, HESS, and MAGIC. We present the results from 15 h of VERITAS observations conducted at large zenith angles, resulting in a > 10 standard deviation detection. The combined Fermi/VERITAS results are compared to astrophysical models.