| 1. |
- Abdalla, H., et al.
(författare)
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Gamma-ray blazar spectra with HESS II mono analysis : The case of PKS2155-304 and PG1553+113
- 2017
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Ingår i: Astronomy and Astrophysics. - : EDP Sciences. - 0004-6361 .- 1432-0746. ; 600
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Context. The addition of a 28 m Cherenkov telescope (CT5) to the H.E.S.S. array extended the experiment's sensitivity to lower energies. The lowest energy threshold is obtained using monoscopic analysis of data taken with CT5, providing access to gamma-ray energies below 100 GeV for small zenith angle observations. Such an extension of the instrument's energy range is particularly beneficial for studies of active galactic nuclei with soft spectra, as expected for those at a redshift >= 0.5. The high-frequency peaked BL Lac objects PKS 2155-304 (z = 0.116) and PG 1553 + 113 (0.43 < z < 0.58) are among the brightest objects in the gamma-ray sky, both showing clear signatures of gamma-ray absorption at E > 100 GeV interpreted as being due to interactions with the extragalactic background light (EBL). Aims. The aims of this work are twofold: to demonstrate the monoscopic analysis of CT5 data with a low energy threshold, and to obtain accurate measurements of the spectral energy distributions (SED) of PKS 2155-304 and PG 1553 + 113 near their SED peaks at energies approximate to 100 GeV. Methods. Multiple observational campaigns of PKS 2155 304 and PG 1553 + 113 were conducted during 2013 and 2014 using the full H.E.S.S. II instrument (CT1-5). A monoscopic analysis of the data taken with the new CT5 telescope was developed along with an investigation into the systematic uncertainties on the spectral parameters which are derived from this analysis. Results. Using the data from CT5, the energy spectra of PKS 2155 304 and PG 1553 + 113 were reconstructed down to conservative threshold energies of 80 GeV for PKS 2155 304, which transits near zenith, and 110 GeV for the more northern PG 1553 + 113. The measured spectra, well fitted in both cases by a log-parabola spectral model ( with a 5.0 similar to statistical preference for non-zero curvature for PKS 2155 304 and 4.5 sigma for PG 1553+113), were found consistent with spectra derived from contemporaneous Fermi-LAT data, indicating a sharp break in the observed spectra of both sources at E approximate to 100 GeV. When corrected for EBL absorption, the intrinsic H.E.S.S. II mono and Fermi-LAT spectrum of PKS 2155 304 was found to show significant curvature. For PG 1553+113, however, no significant detection of curvature in the intrinsic spectrum could be found within statistical and systematic uncertainties.
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| 2. |
- Goldstein, A., et al.
(författare)
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Fermi Observations of the LIGO Event GW170104
- 2017
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Ingår i: Astrophysical Journal Letters. - : IOP PUBLISHING LTD. - 2041-8205 .- 2041-8213. ; 846:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We present the Fermi Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (GBM) and Large Area Telescope (LAT) observations of the LIGO binary black hole merger (BBH) event GW170104. No candidate electromagnetic counterpart was detected by either GBM or LAT. A detailed analysis of the GBM and LAT data over timescales from seconds to days covering the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) localization region is presented. The resulting flux upper bound from the GBM is (5.2-9.4). x. 10(-7) erg cm(-2) s(-1) in the 10-1000 keV range and from the LAT is (0.2-90). x. 10(-9) erg cm(-2) s(-1) in the 0.1-1 GeV range. We also describe the improvements to our automated pipelines and analysis techniques for searching for and characterizing the potential electromagnetic counterparts for future gravitational-wave events from Advanced LIGO/Virgo.
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| 3. |
- Ackermann, M., et al.
(författare)
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Gamma-Ray Blazars within the First 2 Billion Years
- 2017
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Ingår i: Astrophysical Journal Letters. - : Institute of Physics Publishing (IOPP). - 2041-8205 .- 2041-8213. ; 837:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The detection of high-redshift (z > 3) blazars enables the study of the evolution of the most luminous relativistic jets over cosmic time. More importantly, high-redshift blazars tend to host massive black holes and can be used to constrain the space density of heavy black holes in the early universe. Here, we report the first detection with the Fermi-Large Area Telescope of five γ-ray-emitting blazars beyond z = 3.1, more distant than any blazars previously detected in γ-rays. Among these five objects, NVSS J151002+570243 is now the most distant known γ-ray-emitting blazar at z = 4.31. These objects have steeply falling γ-ray spectral energy distributions (SEDs), and those that have been observed in X-rays have a very hard X-ray spectrum, both typical of powerful blazars. Their Compton dominance (ratio of the inverse Compton to synchrotron peak luminosities) is also very large (>20). All of these properties place these objects among the most extreme members of the blazar population. Their optical spectra and the modeling of their optical-UV SEDs confirm that these objects harbor massive black holes (MBH ∼ 10 8-10 Mo ). We find that, at z ≈ 4, the space density of >109 Mo black holes hosted in radio-loud and radio-quiet active galactic nuclei are similar, implying that radio-loudness may play a key role in rapid black hole growth in the early universe.
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| 4. |
- Ajello, M., et al.
(författare)
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3FHL : The Third Catalog of Hard Fermi-LAT Sources
- 2017
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Ingår i: Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series. - : American Astronomical Society. - 0067-0049 .- 1538-4365. ; 232:2
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We present a catalog of sources detected above 10 GeV by the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) in the first 7 years of data using the Pass 8 event-level analysis. This is the Third Catalog of Hard Fermi-LAT Sources (3FHL), containing 1556 objects characterized in the 10 GeV-2 TeV energy range. The sensitivity and angular resolution are improved by factors of 3 and 2 relative to the previous LAT catalog at the same energies (1FHL). The vast majority of detected sources (79%) are associated with extragalactic counterparts at other wavelengths, including 16 sources located at very high redshift (z > 2). Of the sources, 8% have Galactic counterparts and 13% are unassociated (or associated with a source of unknown nature). The high-latitude sky and the Galactic plane are observed with a flux sensitivity of 4.4 to 9.5 x 10(-11) ph cm(-2) s(-1), respectively (this is approximately 0.5% and 1% of the Crab Nebula flux above 10 GeV). The catalog includes 214 new gamma-ray sources. The substantial increase in the number of photons (more than 4 times relative to 1FHL and 10 times to 2FHL) also allows us to measure significant spectral curvature for 32 sources and find flux variability for 163 of them. Furthermore, we estimate that for the same flux limit of 10(-12) erg cm(-2) s(-1), the energy range above 10 GeV has twice as many sources as the range above 50 GeV, highlighting the importance, for future Cherenkov telescopes, of lowering the energy threshold as much as possible.
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| 5. |
- Racusin, J. L., et al.
(författare)
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SEARCHING THE GAMMA-RAY SKY FOR COUNTERPARTS TO GRAVITATIONAL WAVE SOURCES : FERMI GAMMA-RAY BURST MONITOR. AND LARGE AREA TELESCOPE OBSERVATIONS OF LVT151012 AND GW151226
- 2017
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Ingår i: Astrophysical Journal. - : Institute of Physics Publishing (IOPP). - 0004-637X .- 1538-4357. ; 835:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We present the Fermi Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (GBM) and Large Area Telescope (LAT) observations of the LIGO binary black hole merger event GW151226 and candidate LVT151012. At the time of the LIGO triggers on LVT151012 and GW151226, GBM was observing 68% and 83% of the localization regions, and LAT was observing 47% and 32%, respectively. No candidate electromagnetic counterparts were detected by either the GBM or LAT. We present a detailed analysis of the GBM and LAT data over a range of timescales from seconds to years, using automated pipelines and new techniques for characterizing the flux upper bounds across large areas of the sky. Due to the partial GBM and LAT coverage of the large LIGO localization regions at the trigger times for both events, differences in source distances and masses, as well as the uncertain degree to which emission from these sources could be beamed, these non-detections cannot be used to constrain the variety of theoretical models recently applied to explain the candidate GBM counterpart to GW150914.
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| 6. |
- Ackermann, M., et al.
(författare)
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The Fermi Galactic Center GeV Excess and Implications for Dark Matter
- 2017
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Ingår i: Astrophysical Journal. - : Institute of Physics Publishing. - 0004-637X .- 1538-4357. ; 840:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The region around the Galactic Center (GC) is now well established to be brighter at energies of a few GeV than what is expected from conventional models of diffuse gamma-ray emission and catalogs of known gamma-ray sources. We study the GeV excess using 6.5 yr of data from the Fermi Large Area Telescope. We characterize the uncertainty of the GC excess spectrum and morphology due to uncertainties in cosmic-ray source distributions and propagation, uncertainties in the distribution of interstellar gas in the Milky Way, and uncertainties due to a potential contribution from the Fermi bubbles. We also evaluate uncertainties in the excess properties due to resolved point sources of gamma rays. The GC is of particular interest, as it would be expected to have the brightest signal from annihilation of weakly interacting massive dark matter (DM) particles. However, control regions along the Galactic plane, where a DM signal is not expected, show excesses of similar amplitude relative to the local background. Based on the magnitude of the systematic uncertainties, we conservatively report upper limits for the annihilation cross-section as a function of particle mass and annihilation channel.
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| 7. |
- Abdollahi, S., et al.
(författare)
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The Second Catalog of Flaring Gamma-Ray Sources from the Fermi All-sky Variability Analysis
- 2017
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Ingår i: Astrophysical Journal. - : American Astronomical Society. - 0004-637X .- 1538-4357. ; 846:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We present the second catalog of flaring gamma-ray sources (2FAV) detected with the Fermi All-sky Variability Analysis (FAVA), a tool that blindly searches for transients over the entire sky observed by the Large Area Telescope (LAT) on board the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. With respect to the first FAVA catalog, this catalog benefits from a larger data set, the latest LAT data release (Pass 8), as well as from an improved analysis that includes likelihood techniques for a more precise localization of the transients. Applying this analysis to the first 7.4 years of Fermi observations, and in two separate energy bands 0.1-0.8 GeV and 0.8-300 GeV, a total of 4547 flares were detected with significance greater than 6s (before trials), on the timescale of one week. Through spatial clustering of these flares, 518 variable gamma-ray sources were identified. Based on positional coincidence, likely counterparts have been found for 441 sources, mostly among the blazar class of active galactic nuclei. For 77 2FAV sources, no likely gamma-ray counterpart has been found. For each source in the catalog, we provide the time, location, and spectrum of each flaring episode. Studying the spectra of the flares, we observe a harder-when-brighter behavior for flares associated with blazars, with the exception of BL Lac flares detected in the low-energy band. The photon indexes of the flares are never significantly smaller than 1.5. For a leptonic model, and under the assumption of isotropy, this limit suggests that the spectrum of freshly accelerated electrons is never harder than p similar to 2.
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| 8. |
- Ackermann, M., et al.
(författare)
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Fermi-LAT Observations of High-energy Behind-the-limb Solar Flares
- 2017
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Ingår i: Astrophysical Journal. - : Institute of Physics Publishing (IOPP). - 0004-637X .- 1538-4357. ; 835:2
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We report on the Fermi-LAT detection of high-energy emission from the behind-the-limb (BTL) solar flares that occurred on 2013 October 11, and 2014 January 6 and September 1. The Fermi-LAT observations are associated with flares from active regions originating behind both the eastern and western limbs, as determined by STEREO. All three flares are associated with very fast coronal mass ejections (CMEs) and strong solar energetic particle events. We present updated localizations of the >100 MeV photon emission, hard X-ray (HXR) and EUV images, and broadband spectra from 10 keV to 10 GeV, as well as microwave spectra. We also provide a comparison of the BTL flares detected by Fermi-LAT with three on-disk flares and present a study of some of the significant quantities of these flares as an attempt to better understand the acceleration mechanisms at work during these occulted flares. We interpret the HXR emission to be due to electron bremsstrahlung from a coronal thin-target loop top with the accelerated electron spectra steepening at semirelativistic energies. The >100 MeV gamma-rays are best described by a pion-decay model resulting from the interaction of protons (and other ions) in a thick-target photospheric source. The protons are believed to have been accelerated (to energies >10 GeV) in the CME environment and precipitate down to the photosphere from the downstream side of the CME shock and landed on the front side of the Sun, away from the original flare site and the HXR emission.
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| 9. |
- Ackermann, M., et al.
(författare)
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Observations of M31 and M33 with the Fermi Large Area Telescope : A Galactic Center Excess in Andromeda?
- 2017
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Ingår i: Astrophysical Journal. - : IOP PUBLISHING LTD. - 0004-637X .- 1538-4357. ; 836:2
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) has opened the way for comparative studies of cosmic rays (CRs) and high-energy objects in the Milky Way (MW) and in other, external, star-forming galaxies. Using 2 yr of observations with the Fermi LAT, Local Group galaxy M31 was detected as a marginally extended gamma-ray source, while only an upper limit has been derived for the other nearby galaxy M33. We revisited the gamma-ray emission in the direction of M31 and M33 using more than 7 yr of LAT Pass 8 data in the energy range 0.1-100 GeV, presenting detailed morphological and spectral analyses. M33 remains undetected, and we computed an upper limit of 2.0 x 10(-12) erg cm(-2) s(-1) on the 0.1-100 GeV energy flux (95% confidence level). This revised upper limit remains consistent with the observed correlation between gamma-ray luminosity and star formation rate tracers and implies an average CR density in M33 that is at most half of that of the MW. M31 is detected with a significance of nearly 10 sigma. Its spectrum is consistent with a power law with photon index Gamma = 2.4 +/- 0.1(stat) (vertical bar) (syst) and a 0.1-100 GeV energy flux of (5.6 +/- 0.6(stat vertical bar syst)) x 10(-12) erg cm(-1) s(-1). M31 is detected to be extended with a 4 sigma significance. The spatial distribution of the emission is consistent with a uniform-brightness disk with a radius of 0 degrees.4 and no offset from the center of the galaxy, but nonuniform intensity distributions cannot be excluded. The flux from M31 appears confined to the inner regions of the galaxy and does not fill the disk of the galaxy or extend far from it. The gamma-ray signal is not correlated with regions rich in gas or star formation activity, which suggests that the emission is not interstellar in origin, unless the energetic particles radiating in gamma rays do not originate in recent star formation. Alternative and nonexclusive interpretations are that the emission results from a population of millisecond pulsars dispersed in the bulge and disk of M31 by disrupted globular clusters or from the decay or annihilation of dark matter particles, similar to what has been proposed to account for the so-called Galactic center excess found in Fermi-LAT observations of the MW.
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| 10. |
- Ackermann, M., et al.
(författare)
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Search for Extended Sources in the Galactic Plane Using Six Years of Fermi-Large Area Telescope Pass 8 Data above 10GeV
- 2017
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Ingår i: Astrophysical Journal. - : Institute of Physics Publishing (IOPP). - 0004-637X .- 1538-4357. ; 843:2
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The spatial extension of gamma-ray source is an essential ingredient to determine its spectral properties, as well as its potential multiwavelength counterpart. The capability to spatially resolve gamma-ray sources is greatly improved by the newly delivered Fermi-Large Area Telescope (LAT) Pass 8 event-level analysis, which provides a greater acceptance and an improved point-spread function, two crucial factors for the detection of extended sources. Here, we present a complete search for extended sources located within 7 degrees from the Galactic plane, using 6 yr of Fermi-LAT data above 10 GeV. We find 46 extended sources and provide their morphological and spectral characteristics. This constitutes the first catalog of hard Fermi-LAT extended sources, named the Fermi Galactic Extended Source Catalog, which allows a thorough study of the properties of the Galactic plane in the sub-TeV domain.
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| 11. |
- Abdollahi, S., et al.
(författare)
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Search for Cosmic-Ray Electron and Positron Anisotropies with Seven Years of Fermi Large Area Telescope Data
- 2017
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Ingår i: Physical Review Letters. - : American Physical Society. - 0031-9007 .- 1079-7114. ; 118:9
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The Large Area Telescope on board the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has collected the largest ever sample of high-energy cosmic-ray electron and positron events since the beginning of its operation. Potential anisotropies in the arrival directions of cosmic-ray electrons or positrons could be a signature of the presence of nearby sources. We use almost seven years of data with energies above 42 GeV processed with the Pass 8 reconstruction. The present data sample can probe dipole anisotropies down to a level of 10(-3). We take into account systematic effects that could mimic true anisotropies at this level. We present a detailed study of the event selection optimization of the cosmic-ray electrons and positrons to be used for anisotropy searches. Since no significant anisotropies have been detected on any angular scale, we present upper limits on the dipole anisotropy. The present constraints are among the strongest to date probing the presence of nearby young and middle-aged sources.
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