Cosmic rays (CRs) can be studied through the galaxy-wide gamma-ray emission that they generate when propagating in the interstellar medium. The comparison of the diffuse signals from different systems may inform us about the key parameters in CR acceleration and transport. We aim to determine and compare the properties of the CR-induced gamma-ray emission of several Local Group galaxies. We use 2 years of nearly continuous sky-survey observations obtained with the Large Area Telescope aboard the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope to search for gamma-ray emission from M31 and M33. We compare the results with those for the Large Magellanic Cloud, the Small Magellanic Cloud, the Milky Way, and the starburst galaxies M82 and NGC253. We detect a gamma-ray signal at 5sigma significance in the energy range 200 MeV-20 GeV that is consistent with originating from M31. The integral photon flux above 100MeV amounts to 9.1 +/- 1.9 (stat) +/- 1.0 (sys) x10e-9 ph/cm2/s. We find no evidence for emission from M33 and derive an upper limit on the photon flux >100MeV of 5.1 x10e-9 ph/cm2/s (2sigma). Comparing these results to the properties of other Local Group galaxies, we find indications for a correlation between star formation rate and gamma-ray luminosity that also holds for the starburst galaxies. The gamma-ray luminosity of M31 is about half that of the Milky Way, which implies that the ratio between the average CR densities in M31 and the Milky Way amounts to 0.35 +/- 0.25. The observed correlation between gamma-ray luminosity and star formation rate suggests that the flux of M33 is not far below the current upper limit from the LAT observations.
Starburst galaxies have a highly increased star-formation rate compared to regular galaxies and inject huge amounts of kinetic power into the interstellar medium via supersonic stellar winds, and supernova explosions. Supernova remnants, which are considered to be the main source of cosmic rays (CRs), form an additional, significant energy and pressure component and might influence the star-formation process in a major way. Observations of starburst galaxies at γ-ray energies gives us the unique opportunity to study non-thermal phenomena associated with hadronic CRs and their relation to the s…
Misaligned AGN (MAGNs), i.e., radio-loud AGNs with the jet not pointing directly towards us, represent a new class of GeV emitters revealed by the Fermi space telescope. Although they comprise only a small fraction of the high-energy sources, MAGNs are extremely interesting objects offering a different perspective to study high-energy processes with respect to blazars. The aim of this work is to evaluate the impact of the new-generation Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) on the MAGN class and propose possible observational strategies to optimize their detection.
The detection of the high-energy neutrino IC-170922A in spatial (within the error region) and temporal flare activity correlation with the blazar TXS 0506+056 allowed these objects to be considered as progenitor sources of neutrinos. Besides this, no more detection of this kind was reported. Some other neutrinos detected by IceCube show a spatial correlation (within the error region) from other Fermi-LAT detected sources. However, these objects did not show a flare activity like TXS 0506+056. Assuming a lepto-hadronic scenario through p$γ$ interactions, this work describes the SED in some obje…
The Fermi Bubbles (FB) are a pair of large-scale ellipsoidal structures extending above and below the Galactic plane almost symmetrically aligned with the Galactic Center. After more than 10 years since their discovery, their nature and origin remain unclear. Unveiling the primary emission mechanisms, whether hadronic or leptonic, is considered the main tool to shed light on the topic. We explore the potential key role of MeV observations of the FB and we provide a recipe to determine the sensitivity of Compton and Compton-pair telescopes to the extended emission of the FB. We illustrate the c…
In eight years of operation, the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) has detected a large sample of cosmic-ray protons. The LAT's wide field of view and full-sky coverage make it an excellent instrument for studying anisotropy in the arrival directions of protons at all angular scales. These capabilities enable the LAT to make a full-sky 2D measurement of cosmic-ray proton anisotropy complementary to many recent TeV measurements, which are only sensitive to the right ascension component of the anisotropy. Any detected anisotropy probes the structure of the local interstellar magnetic field or cou…
A handedness in the arrival directions of high-energy photons from outside our Galaxy can be related to the helicity of an intergalactic magnetic field. Previous estimates by arXiv:1310.4826 and arXiv:1412.3171 showed a hint of a signal present in the photons observed by the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT). An update on the measurement of handedness in Fermi-LAT data is presented using more than 10 years of observations. Simulations are performed to study the uncertainty of the measurements, taking into account the structure of the exposure caused by the energy-dependent instrument response a…
In this article, we present multi-band photometric observations and analysis of the host galaxies for a sample of five interesting gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) observed using the 3.6m Devasthal Optical Telescope (DOT) and the back-end instruments. The host galaxy observations of GRBs provide unique opportunities to estimate the stellar mass, ages, star-formation rates, and other vital properties of the burst environments and hence progenitors. We performed a detailed spectral energy distribution (SED) modeling of the five host galaxies using an advanced tool called Prospector, a stellar population …
Around 160 gamma-ray pulsars were discovered by the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) since 2008. The most energetic of them, 12 objects with emission above 25 GeV, are suitable candidates for the detection with the current and future Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes above few tens of GeV. We perform an analysis of the Fermi-LAT data of these high-energy pulsars in order to determine if such objects can be detected with the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA). Our goal is to forecast the significance of their point source detection with CTA. We analyze 5 years of the Fermi-LAT data fitting …
Above tens of GeV, gamma-ray observations with the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) can be dominated by statistical uncertainties due to the low flux of sources and the limited acceptance. We are developing a new event class which can improve the acceptance: the "Calorimeter-only (CalOnly)" event class. The LAT has three detectors: the tracker, the calorimeter, and the anti-coincidence detector. While the conventional event classes require information from the tracker, the CalOnly event class is meant to be used when there is no usable tracker information. Although CalOnly events have poor ang…
Blazars are active galactic nuclei with relativistic jets pointed at the Earth, making them extremely bright at essentially all wavelengths, from radio to gamma rays. I review the modeling of this broadband spectral energy distributions of these objects, and what we have learned, with a focus on gamma rays.
The fourth catalog of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) detected by the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope Large Area Telescope (4LAC) between 2008 August 4 and 2016 August 2 contains 2863 objects located at high Galactic latitudes (|b|>10°). It includes 85% more sources than the previous 3LAC catalog based on 4 years of data. AGNs represent at least 79% of the high-latitude sources in the fourth Fermi-Large Area Telescope Source Catalog (4FGL), which covers the energy range from 50 MeV to 1 TeV. In addition, 344 gamma-ray AGNs are found at low Galactic latitudes. Most of the 4LAC AGNs are blazars (9…
费米伽马射线太空望远镜(英语:Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope)的大面积望远镜(英语:Large Area Telescope)是一个对转换望远镜,对超过40个能量十年的伽马射线敏感,介于20 MeV和300 GeV之间。LAT与伽马射线暴监测器(GBM)-任务上的另一种仪器-协同作用,在研究伽马射线暴(GRB)方面,在光谱覆盖范围、有效面积和仪器死时间方面具有前所未有的灵敏度。我们将回顾GRB的Fermi-LAT观测的主要结果,介绍GeV能区GRB的主要性质。
Prospects of the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) for the study of very high energy gamma-ray emission from nearby star-forming galaxies are investigated. In the previous work, we constructed a model to calculate luminosity and energy spectrum of pion-decay gamma-ray emission produced by cosmic-ray interaction with the interstellar medium (ISM), from four physical quantities of galaxies [star formation rate (SFR), gas mass, stellar mass, and effective radius]. The model is in good agreement with the observed GeV--TeV emission of several nearby galaxies. Applying this model to nearby galaxies th…
Dwarf spheroidal galaxies are among the best environments that can be studied with Cherenkov telescopes for indirect searches of $γ$-ray signals coming from dark matter self-interaction (annihilation or decay), due to their proximity and negligible background emission. We present new determinations of the dark-matter amount - i.e. the astrophysical factors $J$ and $D$ - in dwarf-galaxy halos obtained through the MCMC Jeans analysis of their brightness and kinematic data. Such factors are of great importance to test the performances of the next-generation $γ$-ray instruments such as the Cherenk…
Dwarf spheroidal galaxies are dark matter dominated systems, and as such, ideal for indirect dark matter searches. If dark matter decays into high-energy photons in the dwarf galaxies, they will be a good target for current and future generations of X-ray and gamma-ray telescopes. By adopting the latest estimates of density profiles of dwarf galaxies in the Milky Way, we revise the estimates dark matter decay rates in dwarf galaxies; our results are more robust, but weaker than previous estimates. Applying these results, we study the detectability of dark matter decays with X-ray and very-high…
Particles may be accelerated in magnetized coronae via magnetic reconnections and/or plasma turbulence, leading to high-energy neutrinos and soft gamma rays. We evaluate the detectability of neutrinos from nearby bright Seyfert galaxies identified by X-ray measurements. In the disk-corona model, we find that NGC 1068 is the most promising Seyfert galaxy in the Northern sky, where IceCube is the most sensitive, and show prospects for the identification of aggregated neutrino signals from Seyfert galaxies bright in X-rays. Moreover, we demonstrate that nearby Seyfert galaxies are promising targe…
The axion-like particle (ALP)-photon mixing in the magnetic field around $γ$-ray sources or along the line-of-sight could induce oscillation between photons and ALPs, which then causes irregularities in the $γ$-ray spectra. In this work we try to search for such spectral irregularities in the spectrum of PKS $2155-304$ using 8.6 years of the Fermi Large Area Telescope (Fermi-LAT) data. No significant evidence for the presence of ALP-photon oscillation is obtained, and the parameter space of ALPs is constrained. The exclusion region sensitively depends on the poorly known magnetic field of host…