We report our observation of the short gamma-ray burst (GRB) GRB 170817A, associated to the binary neutron star merger gravitational wave (GW) event GW 170817, performed in the X-ray band with ...XMM-Newton 135 d after the event (on 29 December, 2017). We find evidence for a flattening of the X-ray light curve with respect to the previously observed brightening. This is also supported by a nearly simultaneous optical Hubble Space Telescope observation and successive X-ray Chandra and low-frequency radio observations recently reported in the literature. Since the optical-to-X-ray spectral slope did not change with respect to previous observations, we exclude that the change in the temporal evolution of the light curve is due to the passage of the cooling frequency: its origin must be geometric or dynamical. We interpret all the existing afterglow data with two models: i) a structured jet and ii) a jet-less isotropic fireball with some stratification in its radial velocity structure. Both models fit the data and predict that the radio flux must decrease simultaneously with the optical and X-ray emission, making it difficult to distinguish between them at the present stage. Polarimetric measurements and the rate of short GRB-GW associations in future LIGO/Virgo runs will be key to disentangle these two geometrically different scenarios.
We present the 2SXPS (Swift-XRT Point Source) catalog, containing 206,335 point sources detected by the Swift X-ray Telescope (XRT) in the 0.3-10 keV energy range. This catalog represents a ...significant improvement over 1SXPS, with double the sky coverage (now 3790 deg2), and several significant developments in source detection and classification. In particular, we present for the first time techniques to model the effect of stray light-significantly reducing the number of spurious sources detected. These techniques will be very important for future, large effective area X-ray missions, such as the forthcoming Athena X-ray observatory. We also present a new model of the XRT point-spread function and a method for correctly localizing and characterizing piled-up sources. We provide light curves-in four energy bands, two hardness ratios, and two binning timescales-for every source, and from these deduce that over 80,000 of the sources in 2SXPS are variable in at least one band or hardness ratio. The catalog data can be queried or downloaded via a web interface at https://www.swift.ac.uk/2SXPS, via HEASARC, or in Vizier (IX/58).
The NuSTAR view on hard-TeV BL Lacs Costamante, L; Bonnoli, G; Tavecchio, F ...
Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society,
07/2018, Letnik:
477, Številka:
3
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Abstract
Hard-TeV BL Lacs are a new type of blazars characterized by a hard intrinsic TeV spectrum, locating the peak of their gamma-ray emission in the spectral energy distribution (SED) above 2–10 ...TeV. Such high energies are problematic for the Compton emission, using a standard one-zone leptonic model. We study six examples of this new type of BL Lacs in the hard X-ray band with NuSTAR. Together with simultaneous observations with the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, we fully constrain the peak of the synchrotron emission in their SED, and test the leptonic synchrotron self-Compton (SSC) model. We confirm the extreme nature of five objects also in the synchrotron emission. We do not find evidence of additional emission components in the hard X-ray band. We find that a one-zone SSC model can in principle reproduce the extreme properties of both peaks in the SED, from X-ray up to TeV energies, but at the cost of (i) extreme electron energies with very low radiative efficiency, (ii) conditions heavily out of equipartition (by three to five orders of magnitude), and (iii) not accounting for the simultaneous UV data, which then should belong to a different emission component, possibly the same as the far-IR (WISE) data. We find evidence of this separation of the UV and X-ray emission in at least two objects. In any case, the TeV electrons must not ‘see’ the UV or lower energy photons, even if coming from different zones/populations, or the increased radiative cooling would steepen the very high energies spectrum.
We present a carefully selected sample of short gamma-ray bursts (SGRBs) observed by the Swift satellite up to 2013 June. Inspired by the criteria we used to build a similar sample of bright long ...GRBs (the BAT6 sample), we selected SGRBs with favourable observing conditions for the redshift determination on ground, ending up with a sample of 36 events, almost half of which with a redshift measure. The redshift completeness increases up to about 70 per cent (with an average redshift value of z = 0.85) by restricting to those events that are bright in the 15–150 keV Swift Burst Alert Telescope energy band. Such flux-limited sample minimizes any redshift-related selection effects, and can provide a robust base for the study of the energetics, redshift distribution and environment of the Swift bright population of SGRBs. For all the events of the sample, we derived the prompt and afterglow emission in both the observer and (when possible) rest frame and tested the consistency with the correlations valid for long GRBs. The redshift and intrinsic X-ray absorbing column density distributions we obtain are consistent with the scenario of SGRBs originated by the coalescence of compact objects in primordial binaries, with a possible minor contribution (∼10–25 per cent) of binaries formed by dynamical capture (or experiencing large natal kicks). This sample is expected to significantly increase with further years of Swift activity.
We derive the luminosity function φ(L) and redshift distribution Ψ(z) of short gamma-ray bursts (SGRBs) using all the available observer-frame constraints (i.e. peak flux, fluence, peak energy and ...duration distributions) of the large population of Fermi SGRBs and the rest-frame properties of a complete sample of SGRBs detected by Swift. We show that a steep φ(L) ∝ L− α with α ≥ 2.0 is excluded if the full set of constraints is considered. We implement a Markov chain Monte Carlo method to derive the φ(L) and Ψ(z) functions assuming intrinsic Ep−Liso and Ep−Eiso correlations to hold or, alternatively, that the distributions of intrinsic peak energy, luminosity, and duration are independent. To make our results independent from assumptions on the progenitor (NS−NS binary mergers or other channels) and from uncertainties on the star formation history, we assume a parametric form for the redshift distribution of the population of SGRBs. We find that a relatively flat luminosity function with slope ~0.5 below a characteristic break luminosity ~3 × 1052 erg s-1 and a redshift distribution of SGRBs peaking at z ~ 1.5−2 satisfy all our constraints. These results also hold if no Ep−Liso and Ep−Eiso correlations are assumed and they do not depend on the choice of the minimum luminosity of the SGRB population. We estimate, within ~200 Mpc (i.e. the design aLIGO range for the detection of gravitational waves produced by NS−NS merger events), that there should be 0.007−0.03 SGRBs yr-1 detectable as γ-ray events. Assuming current estimates of NS−NS merger rates and that all NS−NS mergers lead to a SGRB event, we derive a conservative estimate of the average opening angle of SGRBs ⟨ θjet ⟩ ~ 3°−6°. The luminosity function implies a prompt emission average luminosity ⟨L⟩ ~ 1.5 × 1052 erg s-1, higher by nearly two orders of magnitude than previous findings in the literature, which greatly enhances the chance of observing SGRB “orphan” afterglows. Effort should go in the direction of finding and identifying such orphan afterglows as counterparts of GW events.
Aims. We investigate the existence of a metallicity threshold for the production of long gamma-ray bursts (LGRBs). Methods. We used the host galaxies of the Swift/BAT6 sample of LGRBs. We considered ...the stellar mass, star formation rate (SFR), and metallicity determined from the host galaxy photometry and spectroscopy up to z = 2 and used them to compare the distribution of host galaxies to that of field galaxies in the mass-metallicity and fundamental metallicity relation plane. Results. We find that although LGRBs also form in galaxies with relatively large stellar masses, the large majority of host galaxies have metallicities below log (O/H) ~ 8.6. The extension to z = 2 results in a good sampling of stellar masses also above Log(M∗/M⊙) ~ 9.5 and provides evidence that LGRB host galaxies do not follow the fundamental metallicity relation. As shown by the comparison with dedicated numerical simulations of LGRB host galaxy population, these results are naturally explained by the existence of a mild (~0.7 Z⊙) threshold for the LGRB formation. The present statistics does not allow us to discriminate between different shapes of the metallicity cutoff, but the relatively high metallicity threshold found in this work is somewhat in disagreement to most of the standard single-star models for LGRB progenitors.
We have reanalyzed the giant outburst of the blazar PKS 1510−089 (z = 0.36) that occurred on 2011 October−November. The γ-ray flux in the 0.1−100 GeV energy range exceeded the value of 10-5 ph cm-2 ...s-1 for several days. The peak flux was reached on 2011 October 19, with a value of ~4.4 × 10-5 ph cm-2 s-1, which in turn corresponds to a luminosity of ~2 × 1049 erg s-1. A very short timescale variability was measured. Particularly on 2011 October 18, the flux-doubling time was as short as ~20 min. This is the shortest variability ever detected in the MeV-GeV energy band. We compared our analysis with two other outbursts observed in 2009 March and 2012 February−March, when the blazar was also detected by H.E.S.S. and MAGIC to infer information about the emission at hundreds of GeV.
The radio-loud quasar SDSS J013127.34–032100.1 at a redshift z = 5.18 is one of the most distant radio-loud objects. The radio to optical flux ratio (i.e. the radio-loudness) of the source is large, ...making it a promising blazar candidate. Its overall spectral energy distribution, completed by the X-ray flux and spectral slope derived through Target of Opportunity Swift/X-ray Telescope observations, is interpreted by a non-thermal jet plus an accretion disc and molecular torus model. We estimate that its black hole mass is (1.1 ± 0.2) × 1010 M⊙ for an accretion efficiency η = 0.08, scaling roughly linearly with η. Although there is a factor ≳2 of systematic uncertainty, this black hole mass is the largest found at these redshifts. We derive a viewing angle between 3 and 5 deg. This implies that there must be other (hundreds) sources with the same black hole mass of SDSS J013127.34–032100.1, but whose jets are pointing away from Earth. We discuss the problems posed by the existence of such large black hole masses at such redshifts, especially in jetted quasars. In fact, if they are associated with rapidly spinning black holes, the accretion efficiency is high, implying a slower pace of black hole growth with respect to radio-quiet quasars.
How the accreted mass settling on the surface of a neutron star affects the topology of the magnetic field and how the secular evolution of the binary system depends on the magnetic field change is ...still an open issue. We report evidence for a clear drop in the observed magnetic field in the accreting pulsar V0332+53 after undergoing a bright 3-month long X-ray outburst. We determine the field from the position of the fundamental cyclotron line in its X-ray spectrum and relate it to the luminosity. For equal levels of luminosity, in the declining phase we measure a systematically lower value of the cyclotron line energy with respect to the rising phase. This results in a drop of ∼1.7 × 1011 G of the observed field between the onset and the end of the outburst. The settling of the accreted plasma on to the polar cap seems to induce a distortion of the magnetic field lines weakening their intensity along the accretion columns. Therefore, the dissipation rate of the magnetic field could be much faster than previously estimated, unless the field is able to restore its original configuration on a time-scale comparable with the outbursts recurrence time.
We investigate the physical properties of 10 blazars at redshift greater than 2 detected in the 3-yr all-sky survey performed by the Burst Alert Telescope (BAT) on board the Swift satellite. We find ...that the jets of these blazars are among the most powerful known. Furthermore, the mass of their central black hole, inferred from the optical–ultraviolet bump, exceeds a few billions of solar masses, with accretion luminosities being a large fraction of the Eddington one. We compare their properties with those of the brightest blazars of the 3-month survey performed by the Large Area Telescope (LAT) on board the Fermi satellite. We find that the BAT blazars have more powerful jets, more luminous accretion discs and larger black hole masses than LAT blazars. These findings can be simply understood on the basis of the blazar sequence, which suggests that the most powerful blazars have a spectral energy distribution with a high-energy peak at MeV (or even sub-MeV) energies. This implies that the most extreme blazars can be found more efficiently in hard X-rays, rather than in the high-energy γ-ray band. We then discuss the implications of our findings for future missions, such as the New Hard X-ray Mission (NHXM) and especially the Energetic X-ray Imaging Survey Telescope (EXIST) mission which, during its planned 2-yr all-sky survey, is expected to detect thousands of blazars, with a few of them at z≳ 6.
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