arXiv subjects

A. Pathania

Publications and source records attributed to A. Pathania.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

A synchro-curvature treatment of gamma-ray luminosity trends in pulsars

In recent years, the Large Area Telescope (LAT) onboard the \emph{Fermi} satellite has detected more than 300 pulsars in the high energy range. The population studies of high energy pulsars show that the gamma ray luminosity of a pulsar ($L_\gamma$) can be expressed in terms of the spin down luminosity ($\dot{E}$) as $L_\gamma \propto \dot {E}^s$ having exponent $s\sim 0.68$. This high energy emission, assumed to originate far from the stellar surface and near the light cylinder, is usually studied in either purely curvature or purely synchrotron regime. In this work, we adopt a synchro-curvature radiation framework to understand the origin of gamma ray emission from the pulsar and its implications at the population-level. By comparing the observed cutoff energies of the differential gamma-ray spectra with the theoretical synchro-curvature predictions and enforcing radiation reaction approximation, we determine the equilibrium Lorentz factor and pitch angle of the emitting charged particles. This approach allows to quantify the relative roles of curvature and synchrotron radiation to the radiative losses, thereby providing a physically grounded interpretation of the luminosity trend across the pulsar population.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2025

Identification of Gamma Ray Pulsar Candidates in the \emph{Fermi}-LAT 4FGL-DR4 Unassociated Sources Using Supervised Machine Learning

The Large Area Telescope (LAT) on board the \emph{Fermi} Gamma-ray Space Telescope has been continuously providing good quality survey data of the entire sky in the high energy range from 30 MeV to 500 GeV and above since August 2008. A succession of gamma-ray source catalogs is published after a comprehensive analysis of the \emph{Fermi}--LAT data. The most recent release of data in the fourth \emph{Fermi}--LAT catalog of gamma-ray sources (4FGL-DR4), based on the first 14 years of observations in the energy band 50 MeV-1 TeV, contains 7195 sources. A large fraction ($\sim$ 33\%) of this population has no known counterparts in the lower wave bands. Such high energy gamma-ray sources are referred to as unassociated or unidentified. An appropriate classification of these objects into known type of gamma-ray sources such as the active galactic nuclei or pulsars is essential for population studies and pointed multi-wavelength observations to probe the radiative processes. In this work, we perform a detailed classification of the unassociated sources reported in the 4FGL-DR4 catalog using two supervised machine learning techniques-Random Forest and Extreme Gradient Boosting. We mainly focus on the identification of new gamma-ray pulsar candidates by making use of different observational features derived from the long-term observations with the \emph{Fermi}--LAT and reported in the incremental 4FGL-DR4 catalog. We also explore the effects of data balancing approach on the classification of the \emph{Fermi}--LAT unassociated sources.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2024

Very High-energy Gamma-Ray Episodic Activity of Radio Galaxy NGC 1275 in 2022-2023 Measured with MACE

The radio galaxy NGC 1275, located at the central region of Perseus cluster, is a well-known very high-energy (VHE) gamma-ray emitter. The Major Atmospheric Cherenkov Experiment Telescope has detected two distinct episodes of VHE (E > 80 GeV) gamma-ray emission from NGC 1275 during 2022 December and 2023 January. The second outburst, observed on 2023 January 10, was the more intense of the two, with flux reaching 58$\%$ of the Crab Nebula flux above 80 GeV. The differential energy spectrum measured between 80 GeV and 1.5 TeV can be described by a power law with a spectral index of $\Gamma = - 2.90 \pm 0.16_{stat}$ for both flaring events. The broadband spectral energy distribution derived from these flares, along with quasisimultaneous low-energy counterparts, suggests that the observed gamma-ray emission can be explained using a homogeneous single-zone synchrotron self-Compton model. The physical parameters derived from this model for both flaring states are similar. The intermediate state observed between two flaring episodes is explained by a lower Doppler factor or magnetic field, which subsequently returned to its previous value during the high-activity state observed on 2023 January 10.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2023

Prospects of detecting gamma-ray signal of dark matter interaction with the MACE telescope

The MACE (Major Atmospheric Cherenkov Experiment) telescope has started its regular gamma-ray observations at Hanle in India. Located at an altitude of $\sim$ 4.3 km above sea level and equipped with a 21 m diameter large quasi-parabolic reflector, it has the capability to explore the gamma-ray sky in the energy range above 20 GeV with very high sensitivity. In this work, we present the results from the feasibility studies for searching high-energy gamma-ray signals from dark matter interaction in potential astrophysical environments. We study the impact of MACE response function and other instrumental characteristics to probe the velocity average interaction cross-section ($<\sigma v>$) of the weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs), expected from the thermal dark matter freeze-out during the decoupling era. We consider the presence of dark matter in the form of pure WIMPs in the mass range 200 GeV - 10 TeV to produce distinctive gamma-ray spectra through its self-annihilation into standard model particles using the Pythia simulation package. The convolution of gamma-ray spectra corresponding to different standard model channels with the MACE response function is used to estimate the upper limit on $<\sigma v>$ for 100 hours of expected MACE observation of Segue1 (a dwarf spheroidal galaxy) which is a potential site of dark matter.

astro-ph.HE↗