The γ-ray sky above a few tens of megaelectronvolts (MeV) reveals some of the most powerful and energetic phenomena of our Universe. The Astrorivelatore Gamma ad Immagini LEggero (AGILE) Gamma-ray ...Mission was launched in 2007 with the aim of observing celestial sources by means of three instruments covering a wide range of energies, from hard X-rays up to 30 GeV. Thanks to its wide field of view, AGILE set to observe and detect emission from pulsars, pulsar wind nebulae, gamma-ray bursts, active galactic nuclei, fast radio bursts, terrestrial gamma-ray flashes, and the electromagnetic counterparts of neutrinos and gravitational waves. In particular, the fast on-ground processing and analysis chain allowed the AGILE team to promptly respond to transient events, and activate or participate in multiwavelength observing campaigns. Eventually, after 17 years of operations, the AGILE Italian scientific satellite re-entered the atmosphere on 14 February 2024, ending its intense activity as a hunter of some of the most energetic cosmic sources in the Universe that emit X and γ-rays. We will review the most relevant AGILE results to date and their impact on the advancements of theoretical models.
AGILE is an ASI space mission in collaboration with INAF, INFN and CIFS, dedicated to the observation of the gamma-ray Universe in the 30 MeV - 50 GeV energy range, with simultaneous X-ray imaging ...capability in the 18-60 keV band. The AGILE satellite was launched on April 23rd, 2007, and produced several important scientic results, among which the unexpected discovery of strong
ares from the Crab Nebula. This discovery won to the AGILE PI and the AGILE Team the Bruno Rossi Prize for 2012 by the High Energy Astrophysics division of the American Astronomical Society. Thanks to its sky monitoring capability and fast ground segment alert system, AGILE detected many Galactic and extragalactic sources: among other results AGILE discovered gamma-ray emission from the microquasar Cygnus X-3, detected many bright blazars, discovered several new gamma-ray pulsars, and discovered emission up to 100 MeV from Terrestrial Gamma-Ray Flashes. We present an overview of the main AGILE Data Center activities and the AGILE scientic highlights after 6 years of operations.
The AGILE data center and its legacy Pittori, Carlotta
Atti della Accademia nazionale dei Lincei. Rendiconti Lincei. Scienze fisiche e naturali,
12/2019, Volume:
30, Issue:
Suppl 1
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
We present an overview of the main AGILE data center activities and architecture. AGILE is a space mission of the Italian Space Agency (ASI) in joint collaboration with INAF, INFN, CIFS, and with the ...participation of several Italian space industry companies. The AGILE satellite was launched on April 23, 2007, and is devoted to the observation of the gamma-ray Universe in the 30 MeV–50 GeV energy range, with simultaneous X-ray imaging capability in the 18–60 keV band. The AGILE Data Center, part of the ASI multi-mission Space Science Data Center (SSDC, previously known as ASDC) is in charge of all the scientific operations: data management, archiving, distribution of AGILE data and scientific software, and user support. Thanks to its sky monitoring capability and fast ground segment alert system, AGILE is substantially improving our knowledge of the gamma-ray sky, and provides a crucial contribution to multimessenger follow-up of gravitational waves and neutrinos.
AGILE is a space mission of the Italian Space Agency dedicated to X-ray and gamma-ray astrophysics operating since 2007. Since the discovery of gravitational wave (GW) events by the LIGO-Virgo ...Collaboration (LVC) announced in February 2016, AGILE is playing a very important role in the search for possible X-ray and gamma-ray counterparts. The large fields of view of the gamma-ray and hard X-ray imagers (2.5 sr and 1 sr, respectively) and the current spinning mode allow AGILE to cover at any moment a very large fraction of the sky. We present here an overview of AGILE observations of GW events during the LVC observing periods O1 and O2 which span the time interval September 2015–August 2017. In particular, we focus on the main characteristics of AGILE observations of the events GW150914, GW170104, and GW170817. The latter event is of great relevance being associated with a “kilonova” counterpart: we establish important physical constraints on the possible
γ
-ray emission from a magnetar-like remnant in the first
∼
1000
s following the GW event time. We also present further developments and preliminary results obtained in preparation of the O3 observing run (start in April 2019). AGILE is fully operative in the search for GW event counterparts, and continues to observe the sky in a unique way because of its combination of large field-of-view hard X-ray and gamma-ray detectors.
AGILE is an Italian Space Agency mission launched in April 2007, devoted to
γ
‐ray
observations in the 30
MeV–50
GeV energy range, with simultaneous X-ray imaging capability in the 18–60
keV band. ...During its first year in orbit AGILE surveyed the
γ
‐ray
sky and detected many galactic and extragalactic sources. The first catalog of high-confidence
γ
‐ray
sources detected by AGILE during observations performed from July 9, 2007 to June 30, 2008, for energies greater than 100
MeV was recently published
1, and preliminary versions of the catalog were published on the AGILE Data Center webpage to allow AGILE Cycle-2 guest observers to benefit of the Catalog in the preparation of their proposals. We present here the main results of the final catalog, that includes 47 high-confidence sources, 21 of which are associated with confirmed or candidate pulsars, 13 with Blazars (7 FSRQ, 4 BL Lacs, 2 unknown type), 2 with HMXRBs, 2 with SNRs, 1 with a colliding-wind binary system, 8 with unidentified sources.
In the spring of 2008 MAGIC organised multi-wavelength (MWL) observations of the blazar 1ES 1011+496. 1ES 1011+496 is a high-frequency peaked BL Lac object (HBL) discovered at VHE γ-rays by MAGIC in ...spring 2007 during an optical outburst reported by the Tuorla Blazar Monitoring Programme. MAGIC re-observed the source during the 2008 MWL campaign which also included the Metsähovi, KVA, Swift and AGILE telescopes. This was the first MWL campaign on this source that also included VHE coverage. MAGIC observed 1ES 1011+496 from March 4th to May 24th 2008 for a total of 27.9 hours, of which 20 h remained after quality cuts. The observations resulted in a detection of the source at ∼7 σ significance level with a mean flux and spectral index similar to those during the discovery. Here we will present the results of the MAGIC observations of the source in combination with contemporaneous observations at other wavelengths (radio, optical, X-rays, high energy γ-rays) and discuss their implications on the modelling of the spectral energy distribution.
Abstract
Gamma-ray emission in the MeV–GeV range from explosive cosmic events is of invaluable relevance to understanding physical processes related to the formation of neutron stars and black holes. ...Here we report on the detection by the AGILE satellite in the MeV–GeV energy range of the remarkable long-duration gamma-ray burst GRB 221009A. The AGILE onboard detectors have good exposure to GRB 221009A during its initial crucial phases. Hard X-ray/MeV emission in the prompt phase lasted hundreds of seconds, with the brightest radiation being emitted between 200 and 300 s after the initial trigger. Very intense GeV gamma-ray emission is detected by AGILE in the prompt and early afterglow phase up to 10,000 s. Time-resolved spectral analysis shows time-variable MeV-peaked emission simultaneous with intense power-law GeV radiation that persists in the afterglow phase. The coexistence during the prompt phase of very intense MeV emission together with highly nonthermal and hardening GeV radiation is a remarkable feature of GRB 221009A. During the prompt phase, the event shows spectrally different MeV and GeV emissions that are most likely generated by physical mechanisms occurring in different locations. AGILE observations provide crucial flux and spectral gamma-ray information regarding the early phases of GRB 221009A during which emission in the TeV range was reported.
We give an overview of the AGILE gamma-ray satellite scientific highlights. AGILE is an Italian Space Agency (ASI) mission devoted to observations in the 30 MeV - 50 GeV gamma-ray energy range, with ...simultaneous X-ray imaging in the 18-60 keV band. Launched in April 2007, the AGILE satellite has completed its tenth year of operations in orbit, and it is substantially contributing to improve our knowledge of the high-energy sky. Emission from cosmic sources at energies above 100 MeV is intrinsically non-thermal, and the study of the wide variety of observed Galactic and extragalactic gamma-ray sources provides a unique opportunity to test theories of particle acceleration and radiation processes in extreme conditions.
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