| 1. |
- Nolan, P. L., et al.
(författare)
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Fermi large area telescope second source catalog
- 2012
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Ingår i: Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series. - : American Astronomical Society. - 0067-0049 .- 1538-4365. ; 199:2, s. 31-
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We present the second catalog of high-energy gamma-ray sources detected by the Large Area Telescope (LAT), the primary science instrument on the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope (Fermi), derived from data taken during the first 24 months of the science phase of the mission, which began on 2008 August 4. Source detection is based on the average flux over the 24 month period. The second Fermi-LAT catalog (2FGL) includes source location regions, defined in terms of elliptical fits to the 95% confidence regions and spectral fits in terms of power-law, exponentially cutoff power-law, or log-normal forms. Also included are flux measurements in five energy bands and light curves on monthly intervals for each source. Twelve sources in the catalog are modeled as spatially extended. We provide a detailed comparison of the results from this catalog with those from the first Fermi-LAT catalog (1FGL). Although the diffuse Galactic and isotropic models used in the 2FGL analysis are improved compared to the 1FGL catalog, we attach caution flags to 162 of the sources to indicate possible confusion with residual imperfections in the diffuse model. The 2FGL catalog contains 1873 sources detected and characterized in the 100 MeV to 100 GeV range of which we consider 127 as being firmly identified and 1171 as being reliably associated with counterparts of known or likely gamma-ray-producing source classes.
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| 2. |
- Ackermann, M., et al.
(författare)
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A STATISTICAL APPROACH TO RECOGNIZING SOURCE CLASSES FOR UNASSOCIATED SOURCES IN THE FIRST FERMI-LAT CATALOG
- 2012
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Ingår i: Astrophysical Journal. - 0004-637X .- 1538-4357. ; 753:1, s. 83-
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) First Source Catalog (1FGL) provided spatial, spectral, and temporal properties for a large number of gamma-ray sources using a uniform analysis method. After correlating with the most-complete catalogs of source types known to emit gamma rays, 630 of these sources are unassociated (i.e., have no obvious counterparts at other wavelengths). Here, we employ two statistical analyses of the primary gamma-ray characteristics for these unassociated sources in an effort to correlate their gamma-ray properties with the active galactic nucleus (AGN) and pulsar populations in 1FGL. Based on the correlation results, we classify 221 AGN-like and 134 pulsar-like sources in the 1FGL unassociated sources. The results of these source classifications appear to match the expected source distributions, especially at high Galactic latitudes. While useful for planning future multiwavelength follow-up observations, these analyses use limited inputs, and their predictions should not be considered equivalent to probable source classes for these sources. We discuss multiwavelength results and catalog cross-correlations to date, and provide new source associations for 229 Fermi-LAT sources that had no association listed in the 1FGL catalog. By validating the source classifications against these new associations, we find that the new association matches the predicted source class in similar to 80% of the sources.
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| 3. |
- Abdo, A. A., et al.
(författare)
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DISCOVERY OF HIGH-ENERGY GAMMA-RAY EMISSION FROM THE BINARY SYSTEM PSR B1259-63/LS 2883 AROUND PERIASTRON WITH FERMI
- 2011
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Ingår i: Astrophysical Journal Letters. - 2041-8205. ; 736:1, s. L11-
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We report on the discovery of >= 100 MeV gamma-rays from the binary system PSR B1259-63/LS 2883 using the Large Area Telescope (LAT) on board Fermi. The system comprises a radio pulsar in orbit around a Be star. We report on LAT observations from near apastron to similar to 128 days after the time of periastron, t(p), on 2010 December 15. No gamma-ray emission was detected from this source when it was far from periastron. Faint gamma-ray emission appeared as the pulsar approached periastron. At similar to t(p) + 30 days, the >= 100 MeV gamma-ray flux increased over a period of a few days to a peak flux 20-30 times that seen during the pre-periastron period, but with a softer spectrum. For the following month, it was seen to be variable on daily timescales, but remained at similar to(1-4) x 10(-6) cm(-2) s(-1) before starting to fade at similar to t(p) + 57 days. The total gamma-ray luminosity observed during this period is comparable to the spin-down power of the pulsar. Simultaneous radio and X-ray observations of the source showed no corresponding dramatic changes in radio and X-ray flux between the pre-periastron and post-periastron flares. We discuss possible explanations for the observed gamma-ray-only flaring of the source.
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| 4. |
- Ackermann, M., et al.
(författare)
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Gamma-ray observations of the orion molecular clouds with the fermi large area telescope
- 2012
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Ingår i: Astrophysical Journal. - 0004-637X .- 1538-4357. ; 756:1, s. 4-
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We report on the gamma-ray observations of giant molecular clouds Orion A and B with the Large Area Telescope (LAT) on board the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. The gamma-ray emission in the energy band between similar to 100 MeV and similar to 100 GeV is predicted to trace the gas mass distribution in the clouds through nuclear interactions between the Galactic cosmic rays (CRs) and interstellar gas. The gamma-ray production cross-section for the nuclear interaction is known to similar to 10% precision which makes the LAT a powerful tool to measure the gas mass column density distribution of molecular clouds for a known CR intensity. We present here such distributions for Orion A and B, and correlate them with those of the velocity-integrated CO intensity (W-CO) at a 1 degrees x 1 degrees pixel level. The correlation is found to be linear over a W-CO range of similar to 10-fold when divided in three regions, suggesting penetration of nuclear CRs to most of the cloud volumes. The W-CO-to-mass conversion factor, X-CO, is found to be similar to 2.3 x 10(20) cm(-2) (K km s(-1))(-1) for the high-longitude part of Orion A (l > 212 degrees), similar to 1.7 times higher than similar to 1.3 x 10(20) found for the rest of Orion A and B. We interpret the apparent high XCO in the high-longitude region of Orion A in the light of recent works proposing a nonlinear relation between H-2 and CO densities in the diffuse molecular gas. W-CO decreases faster than the H-2 column density in the region making the gas "darker" to W-CO.
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| 5. |
- Ackermann, M., et al.
(författare)
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In-flight measurement of the absolute energy scale of the Fermi Large Area Telescope
- 2012
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Ingår i: Astroparticle physics. - : Elsevier BV. - 0927-6505 .- 1873-2852. ; 35:6, s. 346-353
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The Large Area Telescope (LAT) on-board the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope is a pair-conversion telescope designed to survey the gamma-ray sky from 20 MeV to several hundreds of GeV. In this energy band there are no astronomical sources with sufficiently well known and sharp spectral features to allow an absolute calibration of the LAT energy scale. However, the geomagnetic cutoff in the cosmic ray electron-plus-positron (CRE) spectrum in low Earth orbit does provide such a spectral feature. The energy and spectral shape of this cutoff can be calculated with the aid of a numerical code tracing charged particles in the Earth's magnetic field. By comparing the cutoff value with that measured by the LAT in different geomagnetic positions, we have obtained several calibration points between ∌6 and ∌13 GeV with an estimated uncertainty of ∌2%. An energy calibration with such high accuracy reduces the systematic uncertainty in LAT measurements of, for example, the spectral cutoff in the emission from gamma ray pulsars.
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| 6. |
- Ackermann, M., et al.
(författare)
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SEARCH FOR GAMMA-RAY EMISSION FROM X-RAY-SELECTED SEYFERT GALAXIES WITH FERMI-LAT
- 2012
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Ingår i: Astrophysical Journal. - 0004-637X .- 1538-4357. ; 747:2, s. 104-
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We report on a systematic investigation of the gamma-ray properties of 120 hard X-ray-selected Seyfert galaxies classified as radio-quiet objects, utilizing the three-year accumulation of Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) data. Our sample of Seyfert galaxies is selected using the Swift Burst Alert Telescope 58 month catalog, restricting the analysis to the bright sources with average hard X-ray fluxes F14-195 keV >= 2.5 x 10(-11) erg cm(-2) s(-1) at high Galactic latitudes (|b| > 10 degrees). In order to remove radio-loud objects from the sample, we use the hard X-ray radio loudness parameter, RrX, defined as the ratio of the total 1.4 GHz radio to 14-195 keV hard X-ray energy fluxes. Among 120 X-ray bright Seyfert galaxies with RrX < 10(-4), we did not find a statistically significant g-ray excess (TS > 25) positionally coincident with any target Seyferts, with possible exceptions of ESO 323-G077 and NGC 6814. The mean value of the 95% confidence level gamma-ray upper limit for the integrated photon flux above 100 MeV from the analyzed Seyferts is similar or equal to 4 x 10(-9) photons cm(-2) s(-1), and the upper limits derived for several objects reach similar or equal to 1 x 10(-9) photons cm(-2) s(-1). Our results indicate that no prominent gamma-ray emission component related to active galactic nucleus activity is present in the spectra of Seyferts around GeV energies. The Fermi-LAT upper limits derived for our sample probe the ratio of gamma-ray to X-ray luminosities L-gamma/L-X < 0.1, and even <0.01 in some cases. The obtained results impose novel constraints on the models for high-energy radiation of radio-quiet Seyfert galaxies.
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| 7. |
- Ajello, M., et al.
(författare)
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Limits on large extra dimensions based on observations of neutron stars with the Fermi-LAT
- 2012
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Ingår i: Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics. - : IOP Publishing. - 1475-7516. ; :2, s. 012-
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We present limits for the compactification scale in the theory of Large Extra Dimensions (LED) proposed by Arkani-Hamed, Dimopoulos, and Dvali. We use 11 months of data from the Fermi Large Area Telescope (Fermi-LAT) to set gamma ray flux limits for 6 gamma-ray faint neutron stars (NS). To set limits on LED we use the model of Hannestad and Raffelt (HR) that calculates the Kaluza-Klein (KK) graviton production in supernova cores and the large fraction subsequently gravitationally bound around the resulting NS. The predicted decay of the bound KK gravitons to gamma gamma should contribute to the flux from NSs. Considering 2 to 7 extra dimensions of the same size in the context of the HR model, we use Monte Carlo techniques to calculate the expected differential flux of gamma-rays arising from these KK gravitons, including the effects of the age of the NS, graviton orbit, and absorption of gamma-rays in the magnetosphere of the NS. We compare our Monte Carlo-based differential flux to the experimental differential flux using maximum likelihood techniques to obtain our limits on LED. Our limits are more restrictive than past EGRET-based optimistic limits that do not include these important corrections. Additionally, our limits are more stringent than LHC based limits for 3 or fewer LED, and comparable for 4 LED. We conclude that if the effective Planck scale is around a TeV, then for 2 or 3 LED the compactification topology must be more complicated than a torus.
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| 8. |
- Marinucci, A., et al.
(författare)
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Polarization constraints on the X-ray corona in Seyfert Galaxies : MCG-05-23-16
- 2022
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Ingår i: Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 0035-8711 .- 1365-2966. ; 516:4, s. 5907-5913
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We report on the first observation of a radio-quiet active galactic nucleus (AGN) in polarized X-rays: the Seyfert 1.9 galaxy MCG-05-23-16. This source was pointed at with the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) starting on 2022 May 14 for a net observing time of 486 ks, simultaneously with XMM-Newton (58 ks) and NuSTAR (83 ks). A polarization degree Π smaller than 4.7 per cent (at the 99 per cent confidence level) is derived in the 2–8 keV energy range, where emission is dominated by the primary component ascribed to the hot corona. The broad-band spectrum, inferred from a simultaneous fit to the IXPE, NuSTAR, and XMM-Newton data, is well reproduced by a power law with photon index Γ = 1.85 ± 0.01 and a high-energy cutoff EC = 120 ± 15 keV. A comparison with Monte Carlo simulations shows that a lamp-post and a conical geometry of the corona are consistent with the observed upper limit, a slab geometry is allowed only if the inclination angle of the system is less than 50°.
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| 9. |
- Aharonian, Felix, et al.
(författare)
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Atmospheric gas dynamics in the Perseus cluster observed with Hitomi
- 2018
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Ingår i: Publications of the Astronomical Society of Japan. - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 0004-6264 .- 2053-051X. ; 70:2
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Extending the earlier measurements reported in Hitomi collaboration (2016, Nature, 535, 117), we examine the atmospheric gas motions within the central 100 kpc of the Perseus cluster using observations obtained with the Hitomi satellite. After correcting for the point spread function of the telescope and using optically thin emission lines, we find that the line-of-sight velocity dispersion of the hot gas is remarkably low and mostly uniform. The velocity dispersion reaches a maxima of approximately 200 km s(-1) toward the central active galactic nucleus (AGN) and toward the AGN inflated northwestern ghost bubble. Elsewhere within the observed region, the velocity dispersion appears constant around 100 km s(-1). We also detect a velocity gradient with a 100 km s(-1) amplitude across the cluster core, consistent with large-scale sloshing of the core gas. If the observed gas motions are isotropic, the kinetic pressure support is less than 10% of the thermal pressure support in the cluster core. The well-resolved, optically thin emission lines have Gaussian shapes, indicating that the turbulent driving scale is likely below 100 kpc, which is consistent with the size of the AGN jet inflated bubbles. We also report the first measurement of the ion temperature in the intracluster medium, which we find to be consistent with the electron temperature. In addition, we present a new measurement of the redshift of the brightest cluster galaxy NGC 1275.
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| 10. |
- Aharonian, Felix, et al.
(författare)
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Atomic data and spectral modeling constraints from high-resolution X-ray observations of the Perseus cluster with Hitomi
- 2018
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Ingår i: Publications of the Astronomical Society of Japan. - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 0004-6264 .- 2053-051X. ; 70:2
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The Hitomi Soft X-ray Spectrometer spectrum of the Perseus cluster, with similar to 5 eV resolution in the 2-9 keV band, offers an unprecedented benchmark of the atomic modeling and database for hot collisional plasmas. It reveals both successes and challenges of the current atomic data and models. The latest versions of AtomDB/APEC (3.0.8), SPEX (3.03.00), and CHIANTI (8.0) all provide reasonable fits to the broad-band spectrum, and are in close agreement on best-fit temperature, emission measure, and abundances of a few elements such as Ni. For the Fe abundance, the APEC and SPEX measurements differ by 16%, which is 17 times higher than the statistical uncertainty. This is mostly attributed to the differences in adopted collisional excitation and dielectronic recombination rates of the strongest emission lines. We further investigate and compare the sensitivity of the derived physical parameters to the astrophysical source modeling and instrumental effects. The Hitomi results show that accurate atomic data and models are as important as the astrophysical modeling and instrumental calibration aspects. Substantial updates of atomic databases and targeted laboratory measurements are needed to get the current data and models ready for the data from the next Hitomi-level mission.
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