Abstract
We present 294 pulsars found in GeV data from the Large Area Telescope (LAT) on the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. Another 33 millisecond pulsars (MSPs) discovered in deep radio searches ...of LAT sources will likely reveal pulsations once phase-connected rotation ephemerides are achieved. A further dozen optical and/or X-ray binary systems colocated with LAT sources also likely harbor gamma-ray MSPs. This catalog thus reports roughly 340 gamma-ray pulsars and candidates, 10% of all known pulsars, compared to ≤11 known before Fermi. Half of the gamma-ray pulsars are young. Of these, the half that are undetected in radio have a broader Galactic latitude distribution than the young radio-loud pulsars. The others are MSPs, with six undetected in radio. Overall, ≥236 are bright enough above 50 MeV to fit the pulse profile, the energy spectrum, or both. For the common two-peaked profiles, the gamma-ray peak closest to the magnetic pole crossing generally has a softer spectrum. The spectral energy distributions tend to narrow as the spindown power
E
̇
decreases to its observed minimum near 10
33
erg s
−1
, approaching the shape for synchrotron radiation from monoenergetic electrons. We calculate gamma-ray luminosities when distances are available. Our all-sky gamma-ray sensitivity map is useful for population syntheses. The electronic catalog version provides gamma-ray pulsar ephemerides, properties, and fit results to guide and be compared with modeling results.
The third catalog of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) detected by the Fermi-LAT (3LAC) is presented. It is based on the third Fermi-LAT catalog (3FGL) of sources detected with a test statistic (TS) ...greater than 25 using the first 4 years of data. The 3LAC includes 1591 AGNs located at high Galactic latitudes, |b| > 10 (with 28 duplicate associations, thus corresponding to 1563 gamma-ray sources among 2192 sources in the 3FGL catalog), a 71% increase over the second catalog based on 2 years of data. A very large majority of these AGNs (98%) are blazars. About half of the newly detected blazars are of unknown type, i.e., they lack spectroscopic information of sufficient quality to determine the strength of their emission lines. The general properties of the 3LAC sample confirm previous findings from earlier catalogs, but some new subclasses (e.g., intermediate- and high-synchrotron-peaked FSRQs) have now been significantly detected.
Recent detections of the starburst galaxies M82 and NGC 253 by gamma-ray telescopes suggest that galaxies rapidly forming massive stars are more luminous at gamma-ray energies compared to their ...quiescent relatives. Building upon those results, we examine a sample of 69 dwarf, spiral, and luminous and ultraluminous infrared galaxies at photon energies 0.1-100 GeV using 3 years of data collected by the Large Area Telescope (LAT) on the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope (Fermi). Measured fluxes from significantly detected sources and flux upper limits for the remaining galaxies are used to explore the physics of cosmic rays in galaxies. We find further evidence for quasi-linear scaling relations between gamma-ray luminosity and both radio continuum luminosity and total infrared luminosity which apply both to quiescent galaxies of the Local Group and low-redshift starburst galaxies (conservative P-values > ~0.05 accounting for statistical and systematic uncertainties). The normalizations of these scaling relations correspond to luminosity ratios of log (L sub(0.1,100 GeV)/L sub(1.4 GHz)) = 1.7 + or - 0.1 sub((statistical)) + or - 0.2 sub((dispersion)) and log (L sub(0.1-100 GeV)/L sub(8,1000 mu m)) = -4.3 + or - 0.1 sub((statistical)) + or - 0.2 sub((dispersion)) for a galaxy with a star formation rate of 1 M sub(middot in circle) yr super(-1), assuming a Chabrier initial mass function. Using the relationship between infrared luminosity and gamma-ray luminosity, the collective intensity of unresolved star-forming galaxies at redshifts 0 > z > 2.5 above 0.1 GeV is estimated to be 0.4-2.4 x 10 super(-6) ph cm super(-2) s super(-1) sr super(-1) (4%-23% of the intensity of the isotropic diffuse component measured with the LAT). We anticipate that ~10 galaxies could be detected by their cosmic-ray-induced gamma-ray emission during a 10 year Fermi mission.
Broad band spectral energy distribution studies of Fermi bright blazars Monte, C.; Giommi, P.; Cavazzuti, E. ...
Nuclear instruments & methods in physics research. Section A, Accelerators, spectrometers, detectors and associated equipment,
02/2011, Letnik:
630, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
The Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope was successfully launched on June 11, 2008 and has already opened a new era for gamma-ray astronomy. The Large Area Telescope (LAT), the main instrument on board ...Fermi, presents a significant improvement in sensitivity over its predecessor EGRET, due to its large field of view and effective area, combined with its excellent timing capabilities. The preliminary results of the Spectral Energy Distribution Analysis performed on a sample of bright blazars are presented. For this study, the data from the first three months of data collection of Fermi have been used. The analysis is extended down to radio, mm, near-IR, optical, UV and X-ray bands and up to TeV energies based on unprecedented sample of simultaneous multi-wavelength observations by GASP-WEBT.
Satellite galaxies of the Milky Way are among the most promising targets for dark matter searches in gamma rays. We present a search for dark matter consisting of weakly interacting massive ...particles, applying a joint likelihood analysis to 10 satellite galaxies with 24 months of data of the Fermi Large Area Telescope. No dark matter signal is detected. Including the uncertainty in the dark matter distribution, robust upper limits are placed on dark matter annihilation cross sections. The 95% confidence level upper limits range from about 10(-26) cm3 s(-1) at 5 GeV to about 5×10(-23) cm3 s(-1) at 1 TeV, depending on the dark matter annihilation final state. For the first time, using gamma rays, we are able to rule out models with the most generic cross section (∼3×10(-26) cm3 s(-1) for a purely s-wave cross section), without assuming additional boost factors.
We measured separate cosmic-ray electron and positron spectra with the Fermi Large Area Telescope. Because the instrument does not have an onboard magnet, we distinguish the two species by exploiting ...Earth's shadow, which is offset in opposite directions for opposite charges due to Earth's magnetic field. We estimate and subtract the cosmic-ray proton background using two different methods that produce consistent results. We report the electron-only spectrum, the positron-only spectrum, and the positron fraction between 20 and 200 GeV. We confirm that the fraction rises with energy in the 20-100 GeV range. The three new spectral points between 100 and 200 GeV are consistent with a fraction that is continuing to rise with energy.
We have performed an analysis of the diffuse gamma-ray emission with the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) in the Milky Way halo region, searching for a signal from dark matter annihilation or decay. ...In the absence of a robust dark matter signal, constraints are presented. We consider both gamma rays produced directly in the dark matter annihilation/decay and produced by inverse Compton scattering of the e super(+)/e super(-) produced in the annihilation/decay. Conservative limits are derived requiring that the dark matter signal does not exceed the observed diffuse gamma-ray emission. A second set of more stringent limits is derived based on modeling the foreground astrophysical diffuse emission using the GALPROP code. Uncertainties in the height of the diffusive cosmic-ray halo, the distribution of the cosmic-ray sources in the Galaxy, the index of the injection cosmic-ray electron spectrum, and the column density of the interstellar gas are taken into account using a profile likelihood formalism, while the parameters governing the cosmic-ray propagation have been derived from fits to local cosmic-ray data. The resulting limits impact the range of particle masses over which dark matter thermal production in the early universe is possible, and challenge the interpretation of the PAMELA/Fermi-LAT cosmic ray anomalies as the annihilation of dark matter.
Gamma-Ray Flares from the Crab Nebula Abdo, A.A; Ajello, M; Baldini, L ...
Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science),
02/2011, Letnik:
331, Številka:
6018
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
A young and energetic pulsar powers the well-known Crab Nebula. Here, we describe two separate gamma-ray (photon energy greater than 100 mega-electron volts) flares from this source detected by the ...Large Area Telescope on board the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. The first flare occurred in February 2009 and lasted approximately 16 days. The second flare was detected in September 2010 and lasted approximately 4 days. During these outbursts, the gamma-ray flux from the nebula increased by factors of four and six, respectively. The brevity of the flares implies that the gamma rays were emitted via synchrotron radiation from peta-electron-volt (10¹⁵ electron volts) electrons in a region smaller than 1.4 x 10⁻² parsecs. These are the highest-energy particles that can be associated with a discrete astronomical source, and they pose challenges to particle acceleration theory.
Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are highly energetic explosions signaling the death of massive stars in distant galaxies. The Gamma-ray Burst Monitor and Large Area Telescope onboard the Fermi Observatory ...together record GRBs over a broad energy range spanning about 7 decades of gamma-ray energy. In September 2008, Fermi observed the exceptionally luminous GRB 080916C, with the largest apparent energy release yet measured. The high-energy gamma rays are observed to start later and persist longer than the lower energy photons. A simple spectral form fits the entire GRB spectrum, providing strong constraints on emission models. The known distance of the burst enables placing lower limits on the bulk Lorentz factor of the outflow and on the quantum gravity mass.
This paper presents light curves as well as the first systematic characterization of variability of the 106 objects in the high-confidence Fermi Large Area Telescope Bright AGN Sample (LBAS). Weekly ...light curves of this sample, obtained during the first 11 months of the Fermi survey (2008 August 4-2009 July 4), are tested for variability and their properties are quantified through autocorrelation function and structure function analysis. For the brightest sources, 3 or 4 day binned light curves are extracted in order to determine power density spectra (PDSs) and to fit the temporal structure of major flares. More than 50% of the sources are found to be variable with high significance, where high states do not exceed 1/4 of the total observation range. Variation amplitudes are larger for flat spectrum radio quasars and low/intermediate synchrotron frequency peaked BL Lac objects. Autocorrelation timescales derived from weekly light curves vary from four to a dozen of weeks. Variable sources of the sample have weekly and 3-4 day bin light curves that can be described by 1/f(alpha) PDS, and show two kinds of gamma-ray variability: (1) rather constant baseline with sporadic flaring activity characterized by flatter PDS slopes resembling flickering and red noise with occasional intermittence and (2)-measured for a few blazars showing strong activity-complex and structured temporal profiles characterized by long-term memory and steeper PDS slopes, reflecting a random walk underlying mechanism. The average slope of the PDS of the brightest 22 FSRQs and of the 6 brightest BL Lacs is 1.5 and 1.7, respectively. The study of temporal profiles of well-resolved flares observed in the 10 brightest LBAS sources shows that they generally have symmetric profiles and that their total duration vary between 10 and 100 days. Results presented here can assist in source class recognition for unidentified sources and can serve as reference for more detailed analysis of the brightest gamma-ray blazars.
PDF
