arXiv subjects

S. Basa

Publications and source records attributed to S. Basa.

At least 109 records · Page 6Linked to original sources

arXiv2015

The SVOM gamma-ray burst mission

We briefly present the science capabilities, the instruments, the operations, and the expected performance of the SVOM mission. SVOM (Space-based multiband astronomical Variable Objects Monitor) is a Chinese-French space mission dedicated to the study of Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs) in the next decade. The SVOM mission encompasses a satellite carrying four instruments to detect and localize the prompt GRB emission and measure the evolution of the afterglow in the visible band and in X-rays, a VHF communication system enabling the fast transmission of SVOM alerts to the ground, and a ground segment including a wide angle camera and two follow-up telescopes. The pointing strategy of the satellite has been optimized to favor the detection of GRBs located in the night hemisphere. This strategy enables the study of the optical emission in the first minutes after the GRB with robotic observatories and the early spectroscopy of the optical afterglow with large telescopes to measure the redshifts. The study of GRBs in the next decade will benefit from a number of large facilities in all wavelengths that will contribute to increase the scientific return of the mission. Finally, SVOM will operate in the era of the next generation of gravitational wave detectors, greatly contributing to searches for the electromagnetic counterparts of gravitational wave triggers at Xray and gamma-ray energies.

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2015

First combined search for neutrino point-sources in the Southern Hemisphere with the ANTARES and IceCube neutrino telescopes

We present the results of searches for point-like sources of neutrinos based on the first combined analysis of data from both the ANTARES and IceCube neutrino telescopes. The combination of both detectors which differ in size and location forms a window in the Southern sky where the sensitivity to point sources improves by up to a factor of two compared to individual analyses. Using data recorded by ANTARES from 2007 to 2012, and by IceCube from 2008 to 2011, we search for sources of neutrino emission both across the Southern sky and from a pre-selected list of candidate objects. No significant excess over background has been found in these searches, and flux upper limits for the candidate sources are presented for $E^{-2.5}$ and $E^{-2}$ power-law spectra with different energy cut-offs.

hep-ex↗

arXiv2015

Massive stars formed in atomic hydrogen reservoirs: HI observations of gamma-ray burst host galaxies

Long gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), among the most energetic events in the Universe, are explosions of massive and short-lived stars, so they pinpoint locations of recent star formation. However, several GRB host galaxies have recently been found to be deficient in molecular gas (H2), believed to be the fuel of star formation. Moreover, optical spectroscopy of GRB afterglows implies that the molecular phase constitutes only a small fraction of the gas along the GRB line-of-sight. Here we report the first ever 21 cm line observations of GRB host galaxies, using the Australia Telescope Compact Array, implying high levels of atomic hydrogen (HI), which suggests that the connection between atomic gas and star formation is stronger than previously thought, with star formation being potentially directly fuelled by atomic gas (or with very efficient HI-to-H2 conversion and rapid exhaustion of molecular gas), as has been theoretically shown to be possible. This can happen in low metallicity gas near the onset of star formation, because cooling of gas (necessary for star formation) is faster than the HI-to-H2 conversion. Indeed, large atomic gas reservoirs, together with low molecular gas masses, stellar and dust masses are consistent with GRB hosts being preferentially galaxies which have very recently started a star formation episode after accreting metal-poor gas from the intergalactic medium. This provides a natural route for forming GRBs in low-metallicity environments. The gas inflow scenario is also consistent with the existence of the companion HI object with no optical counterpart ~19 kpc from the GRB 060505 host, and with the fact that the HI centroids of the GRB 980425 and 060505 hosts do not coincide with optical centres of these galaxies, but are located close to the GRB positions.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2015

Optical and X-ray early follow-up of ANTARES neutrino alerts

High-energy neutrinos could be produced in the interaction of charged cosmic rays with matter or radiation surrounding astrophysical sources. Even with the recent detection of extraterrestrial high-energy neutrinos by the IceCube experiment, no astrophysical neutrino source has yet been discovered. Transient sources, such as gamma-ray bursts, core-collapse supernovae, or active galactic nuclei are promising candidates. Multi-messenger programs offer a unique opportunity to detect these transient sources. By combining the information provided by the ANTARES neutrino telescope with information coming from other observatories, the probability of detecting a source is enhanced, allowing the possibility of identifying a neutrino progenitor from a single detected event. A method based on optical and X-ray follow-ups of high-energy neutrino alerts has been developed within the ANTARES collaboration. This program, denoted as TAToO, triggers a network of robotic optical telescopes (TAROT and ROTSE) and the Swift-XRT with a delay of only a few seconds after a neutrino detection, and is therefore well-suited to search for fast transient sources. To identify an optical or X-ray counterpart to a neutrino signal, the images provided by the follow-up observations are analysed with dedicated pipelines. A total of 42 alerts with optical and 7 alerts with X-ray images taken with a maximum delay of 24 hours after the neutrino trigger have been analysed. No optical or X-ray counterparts associated to the neutrino triggers have been found, and upper limits on transient source magnitudes have been derived. The probability to reject the gamma-ray burst origin hypothesis has been computed for each alert.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2015

Time calibration with atmospheric muon tracks in the ANTARES neutrino telescope

The ANTARES experiment consists of an array of photomultipliers distributed along 12 lines and located deep underwater in the Mediterranean Sea. It searches for astrophysical neutrinos collecting the Cherenkov light induced by the charged particles, mainly muons, produced in neutrino interactions around the detector. Since at energies of $\sim$10 TeV the muon and the incident neutrino are almost collinear, it is possible to use the ANTARES detector as a neutrino telescope and identify a source of neutrinos in the sky starting from a precise reconstruction of the muon trajectory. To get this result, the arrival times of the Cherenkov photons must be accurately measured. A to perform time calibrations with the precision required to have optimal performances of the instrument is described. The reconstructed tracks of the atmospheric muons in the ANTARES detector are used to determine the relative time offsets between photomultipliers. Currently, this method is used to obtain the time calibration constants for photomultipliers on different lines at a precision level of 0.5 ns. It has also been validated for calibrating photomultipliers on the same line, using a system of LEDs and laser light devices.

physics.ins-det↗

arXiv2015

The Microchannel X-ray Telescope on Board the SVOM Satellite

We present the Micro-channel X-ray Telescope (MXT), a new narrow-field (about 1°) telescope that will be flying on the Sino-French SVOM mission dedicated to Gamma-Ray Burst science, scheduled for launch in 2021. MXT is based on square micro pore optics (MPOs), coupled with a low noise CCD. The optics are based on a "Lobster Eye" design, while the CCD is a focal plane detector similar to the type developed for the seven eROSITA telescopes. MXT is a compact and light (<35 kg) telescope with a 1 m focal length, and it will provide an effective area of about 45 cmsq on axis at 1 keV. The MXT PSF is expected to be better than 4.2 arc min (FWHM) ensuring a localization accuracy of the afterglows of the SVOM GRBs to better than 1 arc min (90\% c.l. with no systematics) provided MXT data are collected within 5 minutes after the trigger. The MXT sensitivity will be adequate to detect the afterglows for almost all the SVOM GRBs as well as to perform observations of non-GRB astrophysical objects. These performances are fully adapted to the SVOM science goals, and prove that small and light telescopes can be used for future small X-ray missions.

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2015

Search for muon-neutrino emission from GeV and TeV gamma-ray flaring blazars using five years of data of the ANTARES telescope

The ANTARES telescope is well-suited for detecting astrophysical transient neutrino sources as it can observe a full hemisphere of the sky at all times with a high duty cycle. The background due to atmospheric particles can be drastically reduced, and the point-source sensitivity improved, by selecting a narrow time window around possible neutrino production periods. Blazars, being radio-loud active galactic nuclei with their jets pointing almost directly towards the observer, are particularly attractive potential neutrino point sources, since they are among the most likely sources of the very high-energy cosmic rays. Neutrinos and gamma rays may be produced in hadronic interactions with the surrounding medium. Moreover, blazars generally show high time variability in their light curves at different wavelengths and on various time scales. This paper presents a time-dependent analysis applied to a selection of flaring gamma-ray blazars observed by the FERMI/LAT experiment and by TeV Cherenkov telescopes using five years of ANTARES data taken from 2008 to 2012. The results are compatible with fluctuations of the background. Upper limits on the neutrino fluence have been produced and compared to the measured gamma-ray spectral energy distribution.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2015

Search of Dark Matter Annihilation in the Galactic Centre using the ANTARES Neutrino Telescope

A search for high-energy neutrinos coming from the direction of the Galactic Centre is performed using the data recorded by the ANTARES neutrino telescope from 2007 to 2012. The event selection criteria are chosen to maximise the sensitivity to possible signals produced by the self-annihilation of weakly interacting massive particles accumulated around the centre of the Milky Way with respect to the atmospheric background. After data unblinding, the number of neutrinos observed in the line of sight of the Galactic Centre is found to be compatible with background expectations. The 90% C.L. upper limits in terms of the neutrino+anti-neutrino flux, $\rm Φ_{ν_μ+\barν_μ}$, and the velocity averaged annihilation cross-section, $\rm <σ_{A}v>$, are derived for the WIMP self-annihilation channels into $\rm b\bar{b},W^{+}W^{-},τ^{+}τ^{-},μ^{+}μ^{-},ν\barν$. The ANTARES limits for $\rm <σ_{A}v>$ are shown to be the most stringent for a neutrino telescope over the WIMP masses $\rm 25\,GeV < M_{WIMP} < 10\,TeV$.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2015

ANTARES Constrains a Blazar Origin of Two IceCube PeV Neutrino Events

The source(s) of the neutrino excess reported by the IceCube Collaboration is unknown. The TANAMI Collaboration recently reported on the multiwavelength emission of six bright, variable blazars which are positionally coincident with two of the most energetic IceCube events. Objects like these are prime candidates to be the source of the highest-energy cosmic rays, and thus of associated neutrino emission. We present an analysis of neutrino emission from the six blazars using observations with the ANTARES neutrino telescope.The standard methods of the ANTARES candidate list search are applied to six years of data to search for an excess of muons --- and hence their neutrino progenitors --- from the directions of the six blazars described by the TANAMI Collaboration, and which are possibly associated with two IceCube events. Monte Carlo simulations of the detector response to both signal and background particle fluxes are used to estimate the sensitivity of this analysis for different possible source neutrino spectra. A maximum-likelihood approach, using the reconstructed energies and arrival directions of through-going muons, is used to identify events with properties consistent with a blazar origin.Both blazars predicted to be the most neutrino-bright in the TANAMI sample (1653$-$329 and 1714$-$336) have a signal flux fitted by the likelihood analysis corresponding to approximately one event. This observation is consistent with the blazar-origin hypothesis of the IceCube event IC14 for a broad range of blazar spectra, although an atmospheric origin cannot be excluded. No ANTARES events are observed from any of the other four blazars, including the three associated with IceCube event IC20. This excludes at a 90\% confidence level the possibility that this event was produced by these blazars unless the neutrino spectrum is flatter than $-2.4$.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2015

Accessing the population of high redshift Gamma Ray Bursts

Gamma Ray Bursts (GRBs) are a powerful probe of the high redshift Universe. We present a tool to estimate the detection rate of high-z GRBs by a generic detector with defined energy band and sensitivity. We base this on a population model that reproduces the observed properties of GRBs detected by Swift, Fermi and CGRO in the hard X-ray and gamma-ray bands. We provide the expected cumulative distributions of the flux and fluence of simulated GRBs in different energy bands. We show that scintillator detectors, operating at relatively high energies (e.g. tens of keV to the MeV), can detect only the most luminous GRBs at high redshifts due to the link between the peak spectral energy and the luminosity (Ep-Liso) of GRBs. We show that the best strategy for catching the largest number of high-z bursts is to go softer (e.g. in the soft X-ray band) but with a very high sensitivity. For instance, an imaging soft X-ray detector operating in the 0.2-5 keV energy band reaching a sensitivity, corresponding to a fluence of ~10^-8 erg cm^-2, is expected to detect ~40 GRBs yr^-1 sr^-1 at z>5 (~3 GRBs yr^-1 sr^-1 at z>10). Once high-z GRBs are detected the principal issue is to secure their redshift. To this aim we estimate their NIR afterglow flux at relatively early times and evaluate the effectiveness of following them up and construct usable samples of events with any forthcoming GRB mission dedicated to explore the high-z Universe.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2014

Constraining the neutrino emission of gravitationally lensed Flat-Spectrum Radio Quasars with ANTARES data

This paper proposes to exploit gravitational lensing effects to improve the sensitivity of neutrino telescopes to the intrinsic neutrino emission of distant blazar populations. This strategy is illustrated with a search for cosmic neutrinos in the direction of four distant and gravitationally lensed Flat-Spectrum Radio Quasars. The magnification factor is estimated for each system assuming a singular isothermal profile for the lens. Based on data collected from 2007 to 2012 by the ANTARES neutrino telescope, the strongest constraint is obtained from the lensed quasar B0218+357, providing a limit on the total neutrino luminosity of this source of $1.08\times 10^{46}\,\mathrm{erg}\,\mathrm{s}^{-1}$. This limit is about one order of magnitude lower than those previously obtained in the ANTARES standard point source searches with non-lensed Flat-Spectrum Radio Quasars.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2014

The Microchannel X-ray Telescope for the Gamma-Ray Burst mission SVOM

We present the Microchannel X-ray Telescope, a new light and compact focussing telescope that will be flying on the Sino-French SVOM mission dedicated to Gamma-Ray Burst science. The MXT design is based on the coupling of square pore micro-channel plates with a low noise pnCCD. MXT will provide an effective area of about 50 cmsq, and its point spread function is expected to be better than 3.7 arc min (FWHM) on axis. The estimated sensitivity is adequate to detect all the afterglows of the SVOM GRBs, and to localize them to better then 60 arc sec after five minutes of observation.

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2014

Spatially-resolved dust properties of the GRB 980425 host galaxy

Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) have been proposed as a tool for studying star formation in the Universe, so it is crucial to investigate whether their host galaxies and immediate environments are in any way special compared with other star-forming galaxies. Here we present spatially resolved maps of dust emission of the host galaxy of the closest known GRB 980425 at z=0.0085 using our new high-resolution observations from Herschel, Atacama Pathfinder Experiment (APEX), Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) and Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA). We modelled the spectral energy distributions of the host and of the star-forming region displaying the Wolf-Rayet signatures in the spectrum (WR region), located 800 pc from the GRB position. The host is characterised by low dust content and a high fraction of UV-visible star formation, similar to other dwarf galaxies. These galaxies are abundant in the local universe, so it is not surprising to find a GRB in one of them, assuming the correspondence between the GRB rate and star formation. The WR region contributes substantially to the host emission at the far-infrared, millimetre, and radio wavelengths and we propose that this is a consequence of its high gas density. If dense environments are also found close to the positions of other GRBs, then the ISM density should also be considered, along with metallicity, an important factor influencing whether a given stellar population can produce a GRB.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2014

Searches for clustering in the time integrated skymap of the ANTARES neutrino telescope

This paper reports a search for spatial clustering of the arrival directions of high energy muon neutrinos detected by the ANTARES neutrino telescope. An improved two-point correlation method is used to study the autocorrelation of 3058 neutrino candidate events as well as cross-correlations with other classes of astrophysical objects: sources of high energy gamma rays, massive black holes and nearby galaxies. No significant deviations from the isotropic distribution of arrival directions expected from atmospheric backgrounds are observed.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2014

The mass profile and dynamical status of the z~0.8 galaxy cluster LCDCS 0504

Constraints on the mass distribution in high-redshift clusters of galaxies are not currently very strong. We aim to constrain the mass profile, M(r), and dynamical status of the $z \sim 0.8$ LCDCS 0504 cluster of galaxies characterized by prominent giant gravitational arcs near its center. Our analysis is based on deep X-ray, optical, and infrared imaging, as well as optical spectroscopy. We model the mass distribution of the cluster with three different mass density profiles, whose parameters are constrained by the strong lensing features of the inner cluster region, by the X-ray emission from the intra-cluster medium, and by the kinematics of 71 cluster members. We obtain consistent M(r) determinations from three methods (dispersion-kurtosis, caustics and MAMPOSSt), out to the cluster virial radius and beyond. The mass profile inferred by the strong lensing analysis in the central cluster region is slightly above, but still consistent with, the kinematics estimate. On the other hand, the X-ray based M(r) is significantly below both the kinematics and strong lensing estimates. Theoretical predictions from $Λ$CDM cosmology for the concentration--mass relation are in agreement with our observational results, when taking into account the uncertainties in both the observational and theoretical estimates. There appears to be a central deficit in the intra-cluster gas mass fraction compared to nearby clusters. Despite the relaxed appearance of this cluster, the determinations of its mass profile by different probes show substantial discrepancies, the origin of which remains to be determined. The extension of a similar dynamical analysis to other clusters of the DAFT/FADA survey will allow to shed light on the possible systematics that affect the determination of mass profiles of high-z clusters, possibly related to our incomplete understanding of intracluster baryon physics.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2014

Searches for Point-like and extended neutrino sources close to the Galactic Centre using the ANTARES neutrino Telescope

A search for cosmic neutrino sources using six years of data collected by the ANTARES neutrino telescope has been performed. Clusters of muon neutrinos over the expected atmospheric background have been looked for. No clear signal has been found. The most signal-like accumulation of events is located at equatorial coordinates RA=$-$46.8$^{\circ}$ and Dec=$-$64.9$^{\circ}$ and corresponds to a 2.2$σ$ background fluctuation. In addition, upper limits on the flux normalization of an E$^{-2}$ muon neutrino energy spectrum have been set for 50 pre-selected astrophysical objects. Finally, motivated by an accumulation of 7 events relatively close to the Galactic Centre in the recently reported neutrino sample of the IceCube telescope, a search for point sources in a broad region around this accumulation has been carried out. No indication of a neutrino signal has been found in the ANTARES data and upper limits on the flux normalization of an E$^{-2}$ energy spectrum of neutrinos from point sources in that region have been set. The 90% confidence level upper limits on the muon neutrino flux normalization vary between 3.5 and 5.1$\times$10$^{-8}$ GeV$\,$cm$^{-2}$s$^{-1}$, depending on the exact location of the source.

hep-ex↗

arXiv2014

New light on gamma-ray burst host galaxies with Herschel

Until recently, dust emission has been detected in very few host galaxies of gamma-ray bursts (GRBHs). With Herschel, we have now observed 17 GRBHs up to redshift z~3 and detected seven of them at infrared (IR) wavelengths. This relatively high detection rate (41%) may be due to the composition of our sample which at a median redshift of 1.1 is dominated by the hosts of dark GRBs. Although the numbers are small, statistics suggest that dark GRBs are more likely to be detected in the IR than their optically-bright counterparts. Combining our IR data with optical, near-infrared, and radio data from our own datasets and from the literature, we have constructed spectral energy distributions (SEDs) which span up to 6 orders of magnitude in wavelength. By fitting the SEDs, we have obtained stellar masses, dust masses, star-formation rate (SFR), and extinctions for our sample galaxies. We find that GRBHs are galaxies that tend to have a high specfic SFR (sSFR), and like other star-forming galaxies, their ratios of dust-to-stellar mass are well correlated with sSFR. We incorporate our Herschel sample into a larger compilation of GRBHs, and compare this combined sample to SFR-weighted median stellar masses of the widest, deepest galaxy survey to date. This is done in order to establish whether or not GRBs can be used as an unbiased tracer of cosmic comoving SFR density (SFRD) in the universe. In contrast with previous results, this comparison shows that GRBHs are medium-sized galaxies with relatively high sSFRs; stellar masses and sSFRs of GRBHs as a function of redshift are similar to what is expected for star-forming galaxy populations at similar redshifts. We conclude that there is no strong evidence that GRBs are biased tracers of SFRD; thus they should be able to reliably probe the SFRD to early epochs.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2014

A Search for Time Dependent Neutrino Emission from Microquasars with the ANTARES Telescope

Results are presented on a search for neutrino emission from a sample of six microquasars, based on the data collected by the ANTARES neutrino telescope between 2007 and 2010. By means of appropriate time cuts, the neutrino search has been restricted to the periods when the acceleration of relativistic jets was taking place at the microquasars under study. The time cuts have been chosen using the information from the X-ray telescopes RXTE/ASM and Swift/BAT, and, in one case, the gamma-ray telescope Fermi/LAT. Since none of the searches has produced a statistically significant signal, upper limits on the neutrino fluences are derived and compared to the predictions from theoretical models.

astro-ph.HE↗