arXiv subjects

R. Desiante

Publications and source records attributed to R. Desiante.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2021

The First Fermi-LAT Solar Flare Catalog

We present the first Fermi - Large Area Telescope (LAT) solar flare catalog covering the 24 th solar cycle. This catalog contains 45 Fermi -LAT solar flares (FLSFs) with emission in the gamma-ray energy band (30 MeV - 10 GeV) detected with a significance greater than 5 sigma over the years 2010-2018. A subsample containing 37 of these flares exhibit delayed emission beyond the prompt-impulsive hard X-ray phase with 21 flares showing delayed emission lasting more than two hours. No prompt-impulsive emission is detected in four of these flares. We also present in this catalog the observations of GeV emission from 3 flares originating from Active Regions located behind the limb (BTL) of the visible solar disk. We report the light curves, spectra, best proton index and localization (when possible) for all the FLSFs. The gamma-ray spectra is consistent with the decay of pions produced by >300 MeV protons. This work contains the largest sample of high-energy gamma-ray flares ever reported and provides the unique opportunity to perform population studies on the different phases of the flare and thus allowing to open a new window in solar physics.

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arXiv2018

Search for extended sources in the Galactic Plane using 6 years of Fermi-Large Area Telescope Pass 8 data above 10 GeV

The spatial extension of a gamma-ray source is an essential ingredient to determine its spectral properties as well as its potential multi-wavelength 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 years of LAT data above 10 GeV. We find 46 extended sources and provide their morphological and spectral characteristics. This constitutes the first catalog of hard 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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arXiv2017

The second catalog of flaring gamma-ray sources from the Fermi All-sky Variability Analysis

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 \textit{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 on the first 7.4 years of \textit{Fermi} observations, and in two separate energy bands 0.1$-$0.8 GeV and 0.8$-$300 GeV, a total of 4547 flares has been detected with a significance greater than $6σ$ (before trials), on the time scale of one week. Through spatial clustering of these flares, 518 variable gamma-ray sources are identified. Likely counterparts, based on positional coincidence, 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 the freshly accelerated electrons is never harder than $p\sim$2.

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arXiv2017

Cosmic-ray electron+positron spectrum from 7 GeV to 2 TeV with the Fermi Large Area Telescope

We present a measurement of the cosmic-ray electron+positron spectrum between 7 GeV and 2 TeV performed with almost seven years of data collected with the Fermi Large Area Telescope. We find that the spectrum is well fit by a broken power law with a break energy at about 50 GeV. Above 50 GeV, the spectrum is well described by a single power law with a spectral index of $3.07 \pm 0.02 \; (\text{stat+syst}) \pm 0.04 \; (\text{energy measurement})$. An exponential cutoff lower than 1.8 TeV is excluded at 95\% CL.

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arXiv2017

Fermi-LAT Observations of High-energy Behind-the-limb Solar Flares

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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arXiv2016

Constraints on the bulk Lorentz factor of Gamma-Ray Burst jets from Fermi/LAT upper limits

It is largely recognized that Gamma-Ray Burst (GRB) jets involve ultra-relativistic motion. However, the value of the Lorentz factor Gamma_0 is still not clear and only lower limits are known for most bursts. We suggest here a new method to obtain upper limits on Gamma_0. The early high-energy synchrotron afterglow flux depends strongly on Gamma_0. Upper limits on GeV emission therefore provide uppers limit on Gamma_0. Applying this method to 190 Fermi GRBs that have not been detected by the Fermi-LAT we place upper limits on the high-energy afterglow flux, and in turn on Gamma_0. For bursts at a typical redshift z=2, we find values of the order of 200 (and above) for a homogeneous density medium, and in the range 100-400 for a wind-like medium. These upper limits are consistent with (and are very close to) lower limits and direct estimates inferred using other methods, suggesting that the typical Lorentz factors of GRB jets are of order a few hundred.

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arXiv2016

Searching the Gamma-ray Sky for Counterparts to Gravitational Wave Sources: Fermi GBM and LAT Observations of LVT151012 and GW151226

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 candi- date LVT151012. 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 char- acterizing the upper limits across a large area of the sky. Due to the partial GBM and LAT coverage of the large LIGO localization regions at the trigger times for both events, dif- ferences 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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arXiv2016

Fermi LAT Gamma-ray Detections of Classical Novae V1369 Centauri 2013 and V5668 Sagittarii 2015

We report the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) detections of high-energy (>100 MeV) gamma-ray emission from two recent optically bright classical novae, V1369 Centauri 2013 and V5668 Sagittarii 2015. At early times, Fermi target-of-opportunity observations prompted by their optical discoveries provided enhanced LAT exposure that enabled the detections of gamma-ray onsets beginning ~2 days after their first optical peaks. Significant gamma-ray emission was found extending to 39-55 days after their initial LAT detections, with systematically fainter and longer duration emission compared to previous gamma-ray detected classical novae. These novae were distinguished by multiple bright optical peaks that encompassed the timespans of the observed gamma rays. The gamma-ray light curves and spectra of the two novae are presented along with representative hadronic and leptonic models, and comparisons to other novae detected by the LAT are discussed.

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arXiv2016

A significant hardening and rising shape detected in the MeV/GeV nuFnu spectrum from the recently-discovered very-high-energy blazar S4 0954+65 during the bright optical flare in 2015 February

We report on Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) and multi-wavelength results on the recently-discovered very-high-energy (VHE, $E>$ 100 GeV) blazar S4 0954+65 ($z=0.368$) during an exceptionally bright optical flare in 2015 February. During the time period (2015 February, 13/14, or MJD 57067) when the MAGIC telescope detected VHE $γ$-ray emission from the source, the Fermi-LAT data indicated a significant spectral hardening at GeV energies, with a power-law photon index of $1.8 \pm 0.1$---compared with the 3FGL value (averaged over four years of observation) of $2.34 \pm 0.04$. In contrast, Swift/XRT data showed a softening of the X-ray spectrum, with a photon index of $1.72 \pm 0.08$ (compared with $1.38 \pm 0.03$ averaged during the flare from MJD 57066 to 57077), possibly indicating a modest contribution of synchrotron photons by the highest-energy electrons superposed on the inverse Compton component. Fitting of the quasi-simultaneous ($<1$ day) broadband spectrum with a one-zone synchrotron plus inverse-Compton model revealed that GeV/TeV emission could be produced by inverse-Compton scattering of external photons from the dust torus. We emphasize that a flaring blazar showing high flux of $\gtrsim 1.0 \times 10^{-6}$ photons cm$^{-2}$ s$^{-1}$ ($E>$ 100 MeV) and a hard spectral index of $Γ_{\rm GeV} < 2.0$ detected by Fermi-LAT on daily time scales is a promising target for TeV follow-up by ground-based Cherenkov telescopes to discover high-redshift blazars, investigate their temporal variability and spectral features in the VHE band, and also constrain the intensity of the extragalactic background light.

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arXiv2016

Measurement of the high-energy gamma-ray emission from the Moon with the Fermi Large Area Telescope

We have measured the gamma-ray emission spectrum of the Moon using the data collected by the Large Area Telescope onboard the Fermi satellite during its first 7 years of operation, in the energy range from 30 MeV up to a few GeV. We have also studied the time evolution of the flux, finding a correlation with the solar activity. We have developed a full Monte Carlo simulation describing the interactions of cosmic rays with the lunar surface. The results of the present analysis can be explained in the framework of this model, where the production of gamma rays is due to the interactions of cosmic-ray proton and helium nuclei with the surface of the Moon. Finally, we have used our simulation to derive the cosmic-ray proton and helium spectra near Earth from the Moon gamma-ray data.

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arXiv2016

Development of the Model of Galactic Interstellar Emission for Standard Point-Source Analysis of Fermi Large Area Telescope Data

Most of the celestial gamma rays detected by the Large Area Telescope (LAT) aboard the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope originate from the interstellar medium when energetic cosmic rays interact with interstellar nucleons and photons. Conventional point and extended source studies rely on the modeling of this diffuse emission for accurate characterization. We describe here the development of the Galactic Interstellar Emission Model (GIEM) that is the standard adopted by the LAT Collaboration and is publicly available. The model is based on a linear combination of maps for interstellar gas column density in Galactocentric annuli and for the inverse Compton emission produced in the Galaxy. We also include in the GIEM large-scale structures like Loop I and the Fermi bubbles. The measured gas emissivity spectra confirm that the cosmic-ray proton density decreases with Galactocentric distance beyond 5 kpc from the Galactic Center. The measurements also suggest a softening of the proton spectrum with Galactocentric distance. We observe that the Fermi bubbles have boundaries with a shape similar to a catenary at latitudes below 20 degrees and we observe an enhanced emission toward their base extending in the North and South Galactic direction and located within 4 degrees of the Galactic Center.

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arXiv2015

Multiwavelength Evidence for Quasi-periodic Modulation in the Gamma-ray Blazar PG 1553+113

We report for the first time a gamma-ray and multi-wavelength nearly-periodic oscillation in an active galactic nucleus. Using the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) we have discovered an apparent quasi-periodicity in the gamma-ray flux (E >100 MeV) from the GeV/TeV BL Lac object PG 1553+113. The marginal significance of the 2.18 +/-0.08 year-period gamma-ray cycle is strengthened by correlated oscillations observed in radio and optical fluxes, through data collected in the OVRO, Tuorla, KAIT, and CSS monitoring programs and Swift UVOT. The optical cycle appearing in ~10 years of data has a similar period, while the 15 GHz oscillation is less regular than seen in the other bands. Further long-term multi-wavelength monitoring of this blazar may discriminate among the possible explanations for this quasi-periodicity.

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arXiv2015

Search for extended gamma-ray emission from the Virgo galaxy cluster with Fermi-LAT

Galaxy clusters are one of the prime sites to search for dark matter (DM) annihilation signals. Depending on the substructure of the DM halo of a galaxy cluster and the cross sections for DM annihilation channels, these signals might be detectable by the latest generation of $γ$-ray telescopes. Here we use three years of Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) data, which are the most suitable for searching for very extended emission in the vicinity of nearby Virgo galaxy cluster. Our analysis reveals statistically significant extended emission which can be well characterized by a uniformly emitting disk profile with a radius of 3°that moreover is offset from the cluster center. We demonstrate that the significance of this extended emission strongly depends on the adopted interstellar emission model (IEM) and is most likely an artifact of our incomplete description of the IEM in this region. We also search for and find new point source candidates in the region. We then derive conservative upper limits on the velocity-averaged DM pair annihilation cross section from Virgo. We take into account the potential $γ$-ray flux enhancement due to DM sub-halos and its complex morphology as a merging cluster. For DM annihilating into $b\overline{b}$, assuming a conservative sub-halo model setup, we find limits that are between 1 and 1.5 orders of magnitude above the expectation from the thermal cross section for $m_{\mathrm{DM}}\lesssim100\,\mathrm{GeV}$. In a more optimistic scenario, we exclude $\langle σv \rangle\sim3\times10^{-26}\,\mathrm{cm^{3}\,s^{-1}}$ for $m_{\mathrm{DM}}\lesssim40\,\mathrm{GeV}$ for the same channel. Finally, we derive upper limits on the $γ$-ray-flux produced by hadronic cosmic-ray interactions in the inter cluster medium. We find that the volume-averaged cosmic-ray-to-thermal pressure ratio is less than $\sim6\%$.

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arXiv2015

Very high energy gamma-ray follow-up observations of novae and dwarf novae with the MAGIC telescopes

In the last few years the Fermi-LAT instrument has detected GeV gamma-ray emission from several novae. Such GeV emission can be interpreted in terms of inverse Compton emission from electrons accelerated in the shock or in terms of emission from hadrons accelerated in the same conditions. The latter might reach much higher energies and could produce a second component in the gamma-ray spectrum at TeV energies. We perform follow-up observations of selected novae and dwarf novae in search of the second component in TeV energy gamma rays. This can shed light on the acceleration process of leptons and hadrons in nova explosions. We have performed observations with the MAGIC telescopes of 3 sources, a symbiotic nova YY Her, a dwarf nova ASASSN-13ax and a classical nova V339 Del, shortly after their outbursts. We did not detect TeV gamma-ray emission from any of the objects observed. The TeV upper limits from MAGIC observations and the GeV detection by Fermi constrain the acceleration parameters for electrons and hadrons.

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arXiv2015

INFN Camera demonstrator for the Cherenkov Telescope Array

The Cherenkov Telescope Array is a world-wide project for a new generation of ground-based Cherenkov telescopes of the Imaging class with the aim of exploring the highest energy region of the electromagnetic spectrum. With two planned arrays, one for each hemisphere, it will guarantee a good sky coverage in the energy range from a few tens of GeV to hundreds of TeV, with improved angular resolution and a sensitivity in the TeV energy region better by one order of magnitude than the currently operating arrays. In order to cover this wide energy range, three different telescope types are envisaged, with different mirror sizes and focal plane features. In particular, for the highest energies a possible design is a dual-mirror Schwarzschild-Couder optical scheme, with a compact focal plane. A silicon photomultiplier (SiPM) based camera is being proposed as a solution to match the dimensions of the pixel (angular size of ~ 0.17 degrees). INFN is developing a camera demonstrator made by 9 Photo Sensor Modules (PSMs, 64 pixels each, with total coverage 1/4 of the focal plane) equipped with FBK (Fondazione Bruno Kessler, Italy) Near UltraViolet High Fill factor SiPMs and Front-End Electronics (FEE) based on a Target 7 ASIC, a 16 channels fast sampler (up to 2GS/s) with deep buffer, self-trigger and on-demand digitization capabilities specifically developed for this purpose. The pixel dimensions of $6\times6$ mm$^2$ lead to a very compact design with challenging problems of thermal dissipation. A modular structure, made by copper frames hosting one PSM and the corresponding FEE, has been conceived, with a water cooling system to keep the required working temperature. The actual design, the adopted technical solutions and the achieved results for this demonstrator are presented and discussed.

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arXiv2015

The Third Catalog of Active Galactic Nuclei Detected by the Fermi Large Area Telescope

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 between 100 MeV and 300 GeV with a Test Statistic (TS) greater than 25, between 2008 August 4 and 2012 July 31. The 3LAC includes 1591 AGNs located at high Galactic latitudes (|b|>10°), a 71% increase over the second catalog based on 2 years of data. There are 28 duplicate associations, thus 1563 of the 2192 high-latitude gamma-ray sources of the 3FGL catalog are AGNs. Most of them (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. Based on their gamma-ray spectral properties, these sources are evenly split between flat-spectrum radio quasars (FSRQs) and BL~Lacs. The most abundant detected BL~Lacs are of the high-synchrotron-peaked (HSP) type. About 50% of the BL~Lacs have no measured redshifts. A few new rare outliers (HSP-FSRQs and high-luminosity HSP BL~Lacs) are reported. The general properties of the 3LAC sample confirm previous findings from earlier catalogs. The fraction of 3LAC blazars in the total population of blazars listed in BZCAT remains non-negligible even at the faint ends of the BZCAT-blazar radio, optical and X-ray flux distributions, which is a clue that even the faintest known blazars could eventually shine in gamma rays at LAT-detection levels. The energy-flux distributions of the different blazar populations are in good agreement with extrapolation from earlier catalogs.

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arXiv2015

PSR J1906+0722: An Elusive Gamma-ray Pulsar

We report the discovery of PSR J1906+0722, a gamma-ray pulsar detected as part of a blind survey of unidentified Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) sources being carried out on the volunteer distributed computing system, Einstein@Home. This newly discovered pulsar previously appeared as the most significant remaining unidentified gamma-ray source without a known association in the second Fermi-LAT source catalog (2FGL) and was among the top ten most significant unassociated sources in the recent third catalog (3FGL). PSR J1906+0722 is a young, energetic, isolated pulsar, with a spin frequency of $8.9$ Hz, a characteristic age of $49$ kyr, and spin-down power $1.0 \times 10^{36}$ erg s$^{-1}$. In 2009 August it suffered one of the largest glitches detected from a gamma-ray pulsar ($Δf / f \approx 4.5\times10^{-6}$). Remaining undetected in dedicated radio follow-up observations, the pulsar is likely radio-quiet. An off-pulse analysis of the gamma-ray flux from the location of PSR J1906+0722 revealed the presence of an additional nearby source, which may be emission from the interaction between a neighboring supernova remnant and a molecular cloud. We discuss possible effects which may have hindered the detection of PSR J1906+0722 in previous searches and describe the methods by which these effects were mitigated in this survey. We also demonstrate the use of advanced timing methods for estimating the positional, spin and glitch parameters of difficult-to-time pulsars such as this.

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arXiv2015

Search for Early Gamma-ray Production in Supernovae Located in a Dense Circumstellar Medium with the Fermi LAT

Supernovae (SNe) exploding in a dense circumstellar medium (CSM) are hypothesized to accelerate cosmic rays in collisionless shocks and emit GeV gamma rays and TeV neutrinos on a time scale of several months. We perform the first systematic search for gamma-ray emission in Fermi LAT data in the energy range from 100 MeV to 300 GeV from the ensemble of 147 SNe Type IIn exploding in dense CSM. We search for a gamma-ray excess at each SNe location in a one year time window. In order to enhance a possible weak signal, we simultaneously study the closest and optically brightest sources of our sample in a joint-likelihood analysis in three different time windows (1 year, 6 months and 3 months). For the most promising source of the sample, SN 2010jl (PTF10aaxf), we repeat the analysis with an extended time window lasting 4.5 years. We do not find a significant excess in gamma rays for any individual source nor for the combined sources and provide model-independent flux upper limits for both cases. In addition, we derive limits on the gamma-ray luminosity and the ratio of gamma-ray-to-optical luminosity ratio as a function of the index of the proton injection spectrum assuming a generic gamma-ray production model. Furthermore, we present detailed flux predictions based on multi-wavelength observations and the corresponding flux upper limit at 95% confidence level (CL) for the source SN 2010jl (PTF10aaxf).

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