Recent high-energy missions have allowed keeping watch over blazars in flaring states, which provide deep insights into the engine powered by supermassive black holes. However, having a quasar caught in a very bright flaring state is not easy requiring long surveys. Therefore, the observation of such flaring events represents a goldmine for theoretical studies. Such a flaring event was captured by the INTEGRAL mission in June 2015 while performing its (as of today) deepest extragalactic survey when it caught the prominent blazar 3C~279 in its brightest flare ever recorded at gamma-ray energies. The flare was simultaneously recorded by the Fermi gamma-ray mission, by the Swift mission, by the INTEGRAL mission and by observations ranging from UV, through optical to the near-IR bands. The derived snapshot of this broad spectral energy distribution of the flare has been modeled in the context of a one-zone radiation transfer leptonic and lepto-hadronic models constraining the single emission components. The derived parameters of both models challenge the physical conditions in the jet. However, very recently published very-high-energy (VHE) data at TeV energies are very close to our lepto-hadronic model.
We present a multi-wavelength study of the FSRQ CTA 102 using Fermi-LAT and simultaneous Swift-XRT/UVOT observations. The Fermi-LAT telescope detected one of the brightest flares from this object during Sep, 2016 to Mar, 2017. In the 190 days of observation period the source underwent four major flares. A detailed analysis of the temporal and spectral properties of these flares indicates the flare at MJD 57751.594 has a $γ$-ray flux of (30.12$\pm$4.48)$\times 10^{-6}$ ph cm$^{-2}$ s$^{-1}$ (from 90 minutes binning) in the energy range of 0.1--300 GeV. This has been found to be the highest flux…
S5 0716+714 is a well known BL Lac object, one of the brightest and most active blazars. The discovery in the Very High Energy band (VHE, E > 100 GeV) by MAGIC happened in 2008. In January 2015 the source went through the brightest optical state ever observed, triggering MAGIC follow-up and a VHE detection with 13σ significance (ATel 6999). Rich multiwavelength coverage of the flare allowed us to construct the broad-band spectral energy distribution of S5 0716+714 during its brightest outburst. In this work we will present the preliminary analysis of MAGIC and Fermi-LAT data of the flaring act…
Starting in 2012, we began an unprecedented observational program focused on the supermassive black hole in the center of our Galaxy, Sgr A*, utilizing the High Energy Transmission Gratings Spectrometer (HETGS) instrument on the Chandra X-ray Observatory. These observations will allow us to measure the quiescent X-ray spectra of Sgr A* for the first time at both high spatial and spectral resolution. The X-ray emission of Sgr A*, however, is known to flare roughly daily by factors of a few to ten times over quiescent emission levels, with rarer flares extending to factors of greater than 100 ti…
The flat spectrum radio quasar 3C~454.3 underwent an extraordinary outburst in December 2009 when it became the brightest gamma-ray source in the sky for over one week. Its daily flux measured with the Fermi Large Area Telescope at photon energies E>100 MeV reached F = 22+/-1 x 10^-6 ph cm^-2 s^-1, representing the highest daily flux of any blazar ever recorded in high-energy gamma-rays. It again became the brightest source in the sky in 2010 April, triggering a pointed-mode observation by Fermi. The correlated gamma-ray temporal and spectral properties during these exceptional events are pres…
An exceptional $γ$-ray outburst from 3C 279 is detected by {\it Fermi}-Large Area Telescope (LAT) in 2015 June. In the energy range of 0.1$-$300 GeV, the highest flux measured is (39.1$\pm$2.5) $\times$ 10$^{-6}$ \phflux, which is the highest $γ$-ray flux ever detected from 3C 279, exceeding the previous historically brightest flare observed by {\it EGRET} in 1996. The high activity period consists of three major flares with the last one being the brightest. All but one flares show a faster rise and slower decay pattern and at the peak of the activity, the $γ$-ray spectrum is found to show a c…
Brightest GRB flare observed in GRB 221009A: bridge the last gap between flare and prompt emission in GRB
State Key Laboratory of Particle Astrophysics, Institute of High Energy Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院高能物理研究所粒子天体物理国家重点实验室）；University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院大学）；School of Physics and Physical Engineering, Qufu Normal University（曲阜师范大学物理与光电工程学院）；Department of Nuclear Science and Technology, School of Energy and Power Engineering, Xi’an Jiaotong University（西安交通大学能源与动力工程学院核科学与技术系）；School of Physical Science and Technology, Southwest Jiaotong University（西南交通大学物理科学与技术学院）；Institute of Astrophysics, Central China Normal University（华中师范大学天体物理研究所）；College of Electronic and Information Engineering, Tongji University（同济大学电子与信息工程学院）；College of Physics and Hebei Key Laboratory of Photophysics Research and Application, Hebei Normal University（河北师范大学物理学院河北省光物理研究与应用重点实验室）；School of Physics and Electronic Science, Guizhou Normal University（贵州师范大学物理与电子科学学院）；Guizhou Provincial Key Laboratory of Radio Astronomy and Data Processing, Guizhou Normal University（贵州师范大学贵州省射电天文与数据处理重点实验室）；School of Physics and Optoelectronics, Xiangtan University（湘潭大学物理与光电工程学院）；School of Computer and Information, Dezhou University（德州学院计算机与信息学院）
Gamma-ray bursts (GRB) are generally believed to be efficient particle accelerators. In the presence of energetic protons in a GRB jet, interactions between these protons and intense radiation field of the GRB are supposed to induce electromagnetic cascade. Electrons/positrons generated in the cascade will produce an additional spectrum of robust feature, which is in the form of a power-law distribution up to GeV regime with an index of $\lesssim 2$. We suggest that measurements of Fermi-LAT at GeV band can provide independent constraints on the key GRB model parameters such as the dissipation…
We report on a search with the IceCube detector for high-energy muon neutrinos from GRB 080319B, one of the brightest gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) ever observed. The fireball model predicts that a mean of 0.1 events should be detected by IceCube for a bulk Lorentz boost of the jet of 300. In both the direct on-time window of 66 s and an extended window of about 300 s around the GRB, no excess was found above background. The 90% CL upper limit on the number of track-like events from the GRB is 2.7, corresponding to a muon neutrino fluence limit of 9.5x10^-3 erg cm^-2 in the energy range between 120 …
The very-high-energy (VHE; E > 100 GeV) gamma-ray experiment, VERITAS, detected exceptionally bright flares from the high-mass X-ray binary LS I +61$^\circ$ 303 during the period October-December 2014. LS I +61$^\circ$ 303 is a known VHE gamma-ray source, the flux from which varies strongly with the orbital period of ~26.5 days. The maximum VHE flux is found around apastron (orbital phase ~0.6) at a level typically corresponding to 10-15% of the Crab Nebula flux (>300 GeV). During these most recent observations, relatively short (day scale), bright TeV flares were observed from the source arou…
We perform simulations of Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) observations of a young supernova remnant RX J1713.7-3946. This target is not only one of the brightest sources ever discovered in very high-energy gamma rays but also well observed in other wavebands. In X-rays, the emission is dominated by synchrotron radiation, which links directly to the existence of high-energy electrons. Radio observations of CO and HI gas have revealed a highly inhomogeneous medium surrounding the SNR, such as clumpy molecular clouds. Therefore gamma rays from hadronic interactions are naturally expected. However…
Time variability of the photon flux is a known feature of active galactic nuclei (AGN) and in particular of blazars. The high frequency peaked BL Lac (HBL) object PKS 2155-304 is one of the brightest sources in the TeV band and has been monitored regularly with different instruments and in particular with the H.E.S.S. experiment above 200 GeV for more than 11 years. These data together with the observations of other instruments and monitoring programs like SMARTS (optical), Swift-XRT/RXTE/XMM-Newton (X-ray) and Fermi-LAT (100 MeV < E < 300 GeV) are used to characterize the variability of this …
We report on two Chandra observations of the quasar PSO J0309+27, the most distant blazar observed so far (z=6.1), performed eight months apart, in March and November 2020. Previous Swift-XRT observation showed that this object is one of the brightest X-ray sources beyond redshift 6.0 ever observed so far. This new data-set confirmed the high flux level and unveiled a spectral change occurred on a very short timescale (250s rest-frame), caused by a significant softening of the emission spectrum. This kind of spectral variability, on a such short interval, has never been reported in the X-ray e…
GRB 221009A is the brightest gamma-ray burst ever detected since the discovery of this kind of energetic explosions. However, an accurate measurement of the prompt emission properties of this burst is very challenging due to its exceptional brightness. With joint observations of \textit{Insight}-HXMT and GECAM-C, we made an unprecedentedly accurate measurement of the emission during the first $\sim$1800 s of GRB 221009A, including its precursor, main emission (ME, which dominates the burst in flux), flaring emission and early afterglow, in the hard X-ray to soft gamma-ray band from $\sim$ 10 k…
The Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope with its main instrument onboard, the Large Area Telescope (LAT), opened a new era in high-energy astrophysics and in particular for the study of Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs), which are short flashes of -rays associated with the brightest and most distant events ever observed in our universe after the Big Bang. My thesis work focused primarily on the observations of this phenomenon with the LAT (20 MeV - 300 GeV) and the Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (10 keV - 40 MeV) onboard the Fermi satellite. After describing the procedure used for detection and analysis of LAT GRB…
Emission from blazar jets in the ultraviolet, optical, and infrared is polarized. If these low-energy photons were inverse-Compton scattered, the upscattered high-energy photons retain a fraction of the polarization. Current and future X-ray and gamma-ray polarimeters such as INTEGRAL-SPI, PoGOLITE, X-Calibur, Gamma-Ray Burst Polarimeter, GEMS-like missions, ASTRO-H, and POLARIX have the potential to discover polarized X-rays and gamma-rays from blazar jets for the first time. Detection of such polarization will open a qualitatively new window into high-energy blazar emission; actual measureme…
Various attempts have been made in the literature at describing the origin and the physical mechanisms behind flaring events in blazars with radiative emission models, but detailed properties of multi-wavelength (MWL) light curves still remain difficult to reproduce. We have developed a versatile radiative code, based on a time-dependent treatment of particle acceleration, escape and radiative cooling, allowing us to test different scenarios to connect the continuous low-state emission self-consistently with that during flaring states. We consider flares as weak perturbations of the quiescent …
We present the discovery of PSO J030947.49+271757.31, the radio brightest (23.7 mJy at 1.4 GHz) active galactic nucleus (AGN) at z>6.0. It was selected by cross-matching the NRAO VLA Sky Survey and the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System PS1 databases and its high-z nature was confirmed by a dedicated spectroscopic observation at the Large Binocular Telescope. A pointed Neil Gehrels $Swift$ Observatory XRT observation allowed us to measure a flux of $\sim$3.4$\times$10$^{-14}$ erg s$^{-1}$ cm$^{-2}$ in the [0.5-10] keV energy band, which also makes this object the X-ray bright…
BL Lac objects of the intermediate subclass (IBLs) are known to emit a substantial fraction of their power in the energy range 0.1--10 GeV. Detecting gamma-ray emission from such sources provides therefore a direct probe of the emission mechanisms and of the underlying powerhouse. The AGILE gamma-ray satellite detected the remarkable IBL S5 0716+714 (z \simeq 0.3) during a high state in the period from 2007 September - October, marked by two very intense flares reaching peak fluxes of 200\times10^{-8} ph / cm^2 s above 100 MeV, with simultaneous optical and X-ray observations. We present here …
Over the last decade, X-ray observations of Sgr A* have revealed a black hole in a deep sleep, punctuated roughly once per day by brief flares. The extreme X-ray faintness of this supermassive black hole has been a long-standing puzzle in black hole accretion. To study the accretion processes in the Galactic Center, Chandra (in concert with numerous ground- and space-based observatories) undertook a 3 Ms campaign on Sgr A* in 2012. With its excellent observing cadence, sensitivity, and spectral resolution, this Chandra X-ray Visionary Project (XVP) provides an unprecedented opportunity to stud…
