Inferring the origins of the pulsed gamma-ray emission from the Crab pulsar with 10-year Fermi LAT data
Paul K. H. Yeung
备注：
Original article published in A&A on 10.08.2020; Data values available at CDS via http://cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr/viz-bin/cat/J/A+A/640/A43 ; Erratum (at the back) accepted by A&A on 10.03.2021; Sincere gratitude is given to D. Horns for his encouragement regarding my submission as a single author
Context: The Crab pulsar is a bright $γ$-ray source detected at photon energies up to $\sim$1 TeV. Its phase-averaged and phase-resolved $γ$-ray spectra below 10 GeV exhibit exponential cutoffs while those above 10 GeV apparently follow simple power-laws. Aims: We re-visit the $γ$-ray properties of the Crab pulsar with 10-year \emph{Fermi} Large Area Telescope (LAT) data in the range of 60 MeV--500 GeV. With the phase-resolved spectra, we investigate the origins and mechanisms responsible for the emissions. Methods: The phaseograms are reconstructed for different energy bands and further analysed using a wavelet decomposition. The phase-resolved energy spectra are combined with the observations of ground-based instruments like MAGIC and VERITAS to achieve a larger energy converage. We fit power-law models to the overlapping energy spectra from 10 GeV to $\sim$1 TeV. We include in the fit a relative cross-calibration of energy scales between air-shower based gamma-ray telescopes with the orbital pair-production telescope of the Fermi mission. Results: We confirm the energy-dependence of the $γ$-ray pulse shape, and equivalently, the phase-dependence of the spectral shape for the Crab pulsar. A relatively sharp cutoff at a relatively high energy of $\sim$8 GeV is observed for the bridge-phase emission. The $E>$10 GeV spectrum observed for the second pulse peak is harder than those for other phases. Conclusions: In view of the diversity of phase-resolved spectral shapes of the Crab pulsar, we tentatively propose a multi-origin scenario where the polar-cap, outer-gap and relativistic-wind regions are involved.
On 2006 August 23 the Crab Pulsar underwent a glitch, that was reported by the Jodrell Bank and the Xinjiang radio observatories. Neither data are available to the public. However, the Jodrell group publishes monthly arrival times of the Crab Pulsar pulse (their actual observations are done daily), using which it is shown that about five months earlier, the Crab Pulsar most probably underwent a small glitch, which has not been reported before. Neither observatory discusses the detailed analysis of data from 2006 March to August; either they may not have detected this small glitch, or may have …
Gamma radiation from the Crab pulsar wind nebula (PWN) shows significant variability at $\sim100$ MeV energies, recently revealed with spaceborne gamma-ray telescopes. Here we report the results of a systematic search for gamma-ray flares using a 7.4-year data set acquired with the Fermi Large Area Telescope. Analyzing the off-pulse phases of the Crab pulsar, we found seven previously unreported low-intensity flares ("small flares"). The "small flares'' originate from the variable synchrotron component of the Crab PWN and show clearly different features from the steady component of the Crab PW…
The Crab Pulsar Wind Nebula is the best studied source of $γ$-ray astrophysics. The contribution of the various soft radiation fields to the Inverse Compton component of its high energy emission, the strenght of the internal magnetic field and the maximum energies reached by primary electrons are however still matter of study. The MAGIC stereoscopic system recorded almost 50 hours of Crab Nebula data in the last two years, between October 2009 and April 2011. Analysis of this data sample using the latest improvements in the MAGIC stereo software provided an unprecedented differential energy sp…
Significant flares of GeV $γ$-ray emission from the Crab Nebula have been found by AGILE and Fermi-LAT years ago, indicating that extreme particle acceleration and radiation occurs in young pulsar wind nebulae. To enlarge the flare sample and to investigate their statistical properties will be very useful in understanding the nature of the $γ$-ray flares. In this paper, we investigate the flaring emission from the Crab Nebula with eleven year observations of the Fermi-LAT. We identify 17 significant flares in the light curve of the low-energy (synchrotron) component of the $γ$-ray emission. Th…
The Crab pulsar and its nebula are very luminous and variable. Since 1982, random fluctuations of the dispersion measure (DM) have been recorded. Also in 2011, Fermi-LAT telescope detected $γ$-ray flux variation of the Crab nebula. No correlation between these phenomena have considered although their fluctuating patterns look similar. We propose a model which connects the DM and the Crab nebula $γ$-ray flux fluctuation, motivated by recently reported correlation between the braking index and the DM variability. Considering electrons within the inner shock region of the nebula produced in break…
Strong gamma-ray flares from the Crab Nebula have been recently discovered by AGILE and confirmed by Fermi-LAT. We study here the spectral evolution in the gamma-ray energy range above 50 MeV of the September 2010 flare that was simultaneously detected by AGILE and Fermi-LAT. We revisit the AGILE spectral data, and present an emission model based on rapid (within 1 day) acceleration followed by synchrotron cooling. We show that this model successfully explains both the published AGILE and Fermi-LAT spectral data showing a rapid rise and a decay within 2-3 days. Our analysis constrains the acce…
My thesis deals with a fundamental question of high energy gamma-ray astronomy. Namely, I studied the cut-off shape of the Crab pulsar spectrum to distinguish between the leading scenarios for the pulsar models. Pulsars are celestial objects, which emit periodic pulsed electromagnetic radiation (pulsation) from radio to high energy gamma-rays. Two major scenarios evolved in past 40 years to explain the pulsation mechanism: the inner magnetosphere scenario and the outer magnetosphere scenario. Both scenarios predict a high energy cut-off in the gamma-ray energy spectrum, but with different cut-…
We report on observations of the Crab pulsar with the MAGIC telescopes. Our data were taken in both monoscopic (> 25GeV) and stereoscopic (> 50GeV) observation modes. Two peaks were detected with both modes and phase-resolved energy spectra were calculated. By comparing with Fermi- LAT measurements, we find that the energy spectrum of the Crab pulsar does not follow a power law with an exponential cutoff, but has an additional hard component, extending up to at least 400 GeV. This suggests that the emission above 25 GeV is not dominated by curvature radiation, as suggested in the standard scen…
We report on the observations of the Crab pulsar with the MAGIC telesopes. Data were taken both in the mono-mode ($>25$ GeV) and in the stereo-mode ($>50$ GeV). Clear signals from the two peaks were detected with both modes and the phase resolved energy spectra were calculated. By comparing with the measurements done by Fermi-LAT, we found that the energy spectra of the Crab pulsar does not follow a power law with an exponential cutoff, but that it extends as a power law after the break at around 5 GeV. This suggests that the emission above 25 GeV is not dominated by the curvatura radiation, w…
The Crab pulsar experienced a major flare in 2010 as observed by Fermi LAT. Observations by the Hubble Space Telescope indicate that the flare was accompanied by a structural change in the anvil region of the Crab Nebula. In the framework of a photometric analysis we reconstruct the energetics of this event. Reconnection zones near the light cylinder are expected to release energy by accelerating beams of electrons, leading to flares of varying amplitude. In this case the major flare would have reduced the magnetic energy stored in the reconnection zones, and would thus have had an impact on t…
The Crab Nebula is a bright emitter of non-thermal radiation across the entire accessible range of wavelengths. The spatial and spectral structures of the synchrotron nebula are well-resolved from radio to hard X-ray emission. The un-pulsed emission at GeV to TeV energies is mostly produced via inverse-Compton scattering of energetic electrons with the synchrotron-emitted photons. The spatial structure observed at these energies provides insights into the distribution of electrons and indirectly constrains the so-far unknown structure of the magnetic field in the nebula. Analyzing the LAT data…
We report on a bright flare in the Crab Nebula detected by the Large Area Telescope (LAT) on board the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. The period of significantly increased luminosity occurred in 2013 March and lasted for approximately 2 weeks. During this period, we observed flux variability on timescales of approximately 5\,hours. The combined photon flux above 100 MeV from the pulsar and its nebula reached a peak value of $(12.5\pm 0.8)\cdot 10^{-6}$\,cm$^{-2}$\,s$^{-1}$ on 2013 March 6. This value exceeds the average flux by almost a factor of 6 and implies a $\sim20$ times higher flux fo…
The giant gamma-ray flares of the Crab nebula discovered by AGILE and Fermi observatories came as a surprise and have challenged the existing models of pulsar wind nebulae. We have carried out an analysis of 10.5 years of Fermi-LAT observations (Aug 2008 -- Feb 2019) and investigated variability of the Crab nebula in the 100-300 MeV range. Besides the flares, we found several month long depressions of the gamma-ray flux and identified several cases of sharp flux drops, where during one week the flux decreased by an order of magnitude with respect to its average value. No statistically signific…
We discuss the minimum glitch size of Crab observed by Espinoza et al. (2014). Modelling the crustquake as a trigger mechanism we estimate the size of the broken plate. The plate size obtained, D $\sim 100 m$ is comparable to plate size estimates for PSR J1119--6127. The plate size naturally leads to an estimate of the number of unpinned vortices involved in the glitch, $N \sim 10^{13} $. This number is of the same order in all Crab and Vela pulsar glitches. The mimimum glitch relates the constancy of all these numbers among different pulsars to the basic plate size involved in crust breaking.…
Subsequent to announcements by the AGILE and by the Fermi-LAT teams of the discovery of gamma-ray flares from the Crab Nebula in the fall of 2010, an international collaboration has been monitoring X-Ray emission from the Crab on a regular basis using the Chandra X-Ray Observatory. Observations occur typically once per month when viewing constraints allow. The aim of the program is to characterize in depth the X-Ray variations within the Nebula, and, if possible, to much more precisely locate the origin of the gamma-ray flares. In 2011 April we triggered a set of Chandra Target-of-Opportunity …
The Crab pulsar is the only astronomical pulsed source detected above 100 GeV. The emission mechanism of very high energy gamma-ray pulsation is not yet fully understood, although several theoretical models have been proposed. In order to test the new models, we measured the light curve and the spectra of the Crab pulsar with high precision by means of deep observations. We analyzed 135 hours of selected MAGIC data taken between 2009 and 2013 in stereoscopic mode. In order to discuss the spectral shape in connection with lower energies, 4.6 years of Fermi-LAT data were also analyzed. The known…
The continuum high-energy gamma-ray emission between 1 GeV and 100 TeV from the Crab Nebula has been measured for the first time in overlapping energy bands by the Fermi large-area telescope (Fermi/LAT) below ~ 100 GeV and by ground-based imaging air Cherenkov telescopes (IACTs) above ~ 60 GeV. To follow up on the phenomenological approach suggested by Hillas et al. (1998), the broad band spectral and spatial measurement (from radio to low-energy gamma-rays < 1 GeV) is used to extract the shape of the electron spectrum. While this model per construction provides an excellent description of the…
We report on Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope observations of the Crab pulsar at 350 MHz from 2012 November 24 until 2015 June 21. During this period we consistently observe variations in the pulse profile of the Crab. Both variations in the scattering width of the pulse profile as well as delayed copies, also known as echoes, are seen regularly. These observations support the classification of two types of echoes: those that follow the truncated exponential shape expected for the thin-screen scattering approximation, and echoes that show a smoother, more Gaussian shape. During a sequence …
$γ$-ray spectra of pulsars have been mostly studied in a phenomenological way, by fitting them to a cut-off power-law function. Here, we analyze a model where pulsed emission comes from synchro-curvature processes in a gap. We calculate the variation of kinetic energy of magnetospheric particles along the gap and the associated radiated spectra, considering an effective particle distribution. We fit the phase-averaged and phase-resolved Fermi-LAT spectra of the three brightest gamma-ray pulsars: Geminga, Crab, and Vela, and constrain the three free parameters we leave free in the model. Our be…
In March 2013, a flaring episode from the Crab Nebula lasting ~2 weeks was detected by the Fermi-LAT (Large Area Telescope on board the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope). VERITAS provides simultaneous observations throughout this period. During the flare, the Fermi-LAT detected a 20-fold increase in flux above the average synchrotron flux >100 MeV seen from the Crab Nebula. Simultaneous measurements with VERITAS are consistent with the non-variable long-term average Crab Nebula flux at TeV energies. Assuming a linear correlation between the very-high-energy flux change >1 TeV and the flux chang…
In-flight calibration of the INTEGRAL/IBIS Compton mode: Application to the Crab Nebula polarization
CEA/CNRS/Université Paris-Saclay, Université Paris Cité（法国原子能委员会/法国国家科学研究中心/巴黎萨克雷大学、巴黎西岱大学）；Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg（维尔茨堡朱利叶斯-马克西米利安大学）；APC, Université Paris Cité/CNRS/CEA（粒子与宇宙学实验室，巴黎西岱大学/法国国家科学研究中心/法国原子能委员会）
The flaring activity of the Crab Nebula is one of the most puzzling phenomena of the gamma ray sky. The light curves in the energy range E >100 MeV show a high flux variability on time scales ranging from hours to weeks, with sharp emission peaks superimposed to long lasting smoother modulations, whose origin is still under debate. A long term observation of the Crab Nebula at TeV energies could add useful information to understand the mechanisms responsible of this unexpected behavior. The air shower detector ARGO-YBJ monitored the Crab Nebula in the energy range 0.5-20 TeV from November 2007…
A statistical scenario is proposed to explain the $γ$-ray variability and flares of the Crab nebula, which were observed recently by the Fermi/LAT. In this scenario electrons are accelerated in a series of knots, whose sizes follow a power-law distribution. These knots presumably move outwards from the pulsar and have a distribution in the Doppler boost factor. The maximal electron energy is assumed to be proportional to the size of the knot. Fluctuations at the highest energy end of the overall electron distribution will result in variable $γ$-ray emission via the synchrotron process in the $…
Chandra images of the Crab Nebula resolve the detailed structure of its "inner ring", possibly a termination shock where pulsar-accelerated relativistic particles begin to emit X radiation. Analysis of these images finds that the center of the ellipse-presumably a circular ring in projection-lies about 0.9" (10 light-days at 2 kpc) from the pulsar's image, at a position angle of about 300° (East of North). This analysis also measures properties of the ellipse: The position angle of the semi-major axis is about 210° (East of North); the aspect ratio, 0.49. In a simple-albeit, not unique-de-proj…
Context{The high energy emission regions of rotation powered pulsars are studied using folded light curve (FLCs) and phase resolved spectra (PRS).} aims{This work uses the NICER observatory to obtain the highest resolution FLC and PRS of the Crab pulsar at soft X-ray energies.} methods{NICER has accumulated about 347 ksec of data on the Crab pulsar. The data are processed using the standard analysis pipeline. Stringent filtering is done for spectral analysis. The individual detectors are calibrated in terms of long time light curve (LTLC), raw spectrum and deadtime. The arrival times of the ph…
The γ-ray flares from the Crab nebula observed by AGILE and Fermi-LAT reaching GeV energies and lasting several days challenge the standard models for particle acceleration in pulsar wind nebulae, because the radiating electrons have energies exceeding the classical radiation-reaction limit for synchrotron. Previous modeling has suggested that the synchrotron limit can be exceeded if the electrons experience electrostatic acceleration, but the resulting spectra do not agree very well with the data. As a result, there are still some important unanswered questions about the detailed particle acc…
We report on gamma-ray observations of the Crab Pulsar and Nebula using 8 months of survey data with the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT). The high quality light curve obtained using the ephemeris provided by the Nancay and Jodrell Bank radio telescopes shows two main peaks stable in phase with energy. The first gamma-ray peak leads the radio main pulse by (281 \pm 12 \pm 21) mus, giving new constraints on the production site of non-thermal emission in pulsar magnetospheres. The improved sensitivity and the unprecedented statistics afforded by the LAT enable precise measurement of the Crab Pul…
The recently discovered gamma-ray flares from the Crab nebula are generally attributed to the magnetic energy release in a highly magnetized region within the nebula. I argue that such a region naturally arises in the polar region of the inner nebula. In pulsar winds, efficient dissipation of the Poynting flux into the plasma energy occur only in the equatorial belt where the energy is predominantly transferred by alternating fields. At high latitudes, the pulsar wind remains highly magnetized therefore the termination shock in the polar region is weak and the postshock flow remains relativist…
We discuss X-ray and gamma-ray emissions from Crab-like pulsars, PSRs~J0537-6910 and~J0540-6919, in Large Magellanic Cloud. Fermi-LAT observations have resolved the gamma-ray emissions from these two pulsars and found the pulsed emissions from PSR~J0540-6919. The total pulsed radiation in the X-ray/gamma-ray energy bands of PSR~J0540-6919 is observed with the efficiency $η_{J0540}\sim 0.06$ (in 4$π$ sr), which is about a factor of ten larger than $η_{Crab}\sim 0.006$ of the Crab pulsar. Although PSR~J0537-6910 has the highest spin-down power among currently known pulsars, the efficiency of the…
Recently the AGILE $γ$-ray telescope has reported the enhanced $γ$-ray emission above 100 MeV from the direction of the Crab Nebula during a period of a few days. This intriguing observation has been confirmed by the Fermi-LAT telescope. This emission does not show evidences of pulsations with the Crab pulsar. It seems that it originates at the shock region created as a result of the interaction of the pulsar wind with the nebula. We propose that such variable $γ$-ray emission originate in the region behind the shock when the electrons can be accelerated as a result of the reconnection of the …
Pulsar glitches are attributed to the sudden re-coupling of very weakly coupled large scale superfluid components in the neutron star interior. This process leads to rapid exchange of angular momentum and an increase in spin frequency. The transfer of angular momentum is regulated by a dissipative mutual friction, whose strength defines the spin-up timescale of a glitch. Hence, observations of glitch rises can be used to shed light on the dominant microphysical interactions at work in the high density interior of the star. We present a simple analytical model, complemented with more detailed n…
The ARGO-YBJ air shower detector monitored the Crab Nebula gamma ray emission from 2007 November to 2013 February. The integrated signal, consisting of $\sim$3.3 $\times$ 10$^5$ events,reached the statistical significance of 21.1 standard deviations. The obtained energy spectrum in the energy range 0.3-20 TeV can be described by a power law function dN/dE = I$_0$ (E / 2 TeV)$^{-α}$, with a flux normalization I$_0$ = (5.2 $\pm$ 0.2) $\times$ 10$^{-12}$ photons cm$^{-2}$ s$^{-1}$ TeV$^{-1}$ and $α$ = 2.63 $\pm$ 0.05, corresponding to an integrated flux above 1 TeV of 1.97 $\times$ 10$^{-11}$ pho…
POLAR is a Compton polarimeter sensitive in the 50 to 500 keV energy range. The Crab pulsar is a scientific target for POLAR on board the Chinese space laboratory Tiangong-2 (TG-2). With its large Field of View (FoV), POLAR detected significant pulsed signals from the Crab pulsar which is visible by POLAR in about half of observation time. In this work, we present the preliminary results including the pulse profile, timing and polarization measuring method. First, we show the highly significant pulse profile observed by POLAR which is compared to the results of other detectors including Fermi/…
Echoes in Different Tempo: Long-Term Monitoring of Crab Echoes with CHIME
David A. Dunlap Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Toronto（多伦多大学戴维·A·邓拉普天文学与天体物理学系）；Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics（加拿大理论天体物理研究所）；Department of Physics, McGill University（麦吉尔大学物理系）；Trottier Space Institute, McGill University（麦吉尔大学特罗蒂尔太空研究所）；MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology（麻省理工学院卡弗里天体物理学与空间研究研究所）；Department of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology（麻省理工学院物理系）；Department of Physics and Astronomy, Union College（联合学院物理与天文系）；Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Academia Sinica（中央研究院天文学与天体物理学研究所）
We summarize here the results, most of which are preliminary, of a number of recent observations of the Crab nebula system with the Chandra X-Ray Observatory. We discuss four different topics: (1) The motion on long (> 1yr) time scales of the southern jet. (2) The discovery that pulsar is not at the center of the projected ring on the sky and that the ring may well lie on the axis of symmetry but appears to be displaced at a latitude of about 5 degrees. (Note that this deprojection is by no means unique.) (3) The results and puzzling implications of the Chandra phase-resolved spectroscopy of t…
Gamma-ray emission from the Crab Nebula has been recently shown to be unsteady. In this paper, we study the flux and spectral variability of the Crab above 100 MeV on different timescales ranging from days to weeks. In addition to the four main intense and day-long flares detected by AGILE and Fermi-LAT between Sept. 2007 and Sept. 2012, we find evidence for week-long and less intense episodes of enhanced gamma-ray emission that we call "waves". Statistically significant "waves" show timescales of 1-2 weeks, and can occur by themselves or in association with shorter flares. We present a refine…
In the last few years, the Fermi-LAT telescope has discovered over a 100 pulsars at energies above 100 MeV, increasing the number of known gamma-ray pulsars by an order of magnitude. In parallel, imaging Cherenkov telescopes, such as MAGIC and VERITAS, have detected for the first time VHE pulsed gamma-rays from the Crab pulsar. Such detections have revealed that the Crab VHE spectrum follows a power-law up to at least 400 GeV, challenging most theoretical models, and opening wide possibilities of detecting more pulsars from the ground with the future Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA). In this co…
The Crab and Vela are well-studied glitching pulsars and the data obtained sofar should enable us to test the reliability of models of their internal structures. Very recently it was proposed that glitching pulsars are embedded in bimetric spacetime: their incompressible superfluid cores (SuSu-cores) are embedded in flat spacetime, whereas the ambient compressible and dissipative media are enclosed in Schwarzschild spacetime. In this letter we apply this model to the Crab and Vela pulsars and show that a newly born pulsar initially of $1.25\text{M}_{\odot}$ and an embryonic SuSu-core of $0.029…
Recently the AGILE and Fermi/LAT detectors uncovered giant $γ$-ray flares from the Crab nebula. The duration of these flares is a few days. The Fermi/LAT data with monthly time binning further showed significant variability of the synchrotron tail of the emission, while the inverse Compton component was stable. The simultaneous or follow-up observations in X-ray, optical, infrared and radio bands did not find significant flux variation. Based on these observations, we propose that the $γ$-ray variability and flares are due to statistical fluctuations of knots that can accelerate electrons to $…
We report on the MAXI GSC X-ray monitoring of the Crab nebula and pulsar during the GeV gamma-ray flare for the period of 2010 September 18-24 (MJD 55457-55463) detected by AGILE and Fermi-LAT. There were no significant variations on the pulse phase averaged and pulsed fluxes during the gamma-ray flare on time scales from 0.5 to 5 days. The pulse profile also showed no significant change during this period. The upper limits on the variations of the pulse phase averaged and pulsed fluxes for the period MJD 55457.5-55462.5 in the 4-10 keV band are derived to be 1 and 19%, respectively, at the 90…
The $γ$-ray flares from the Crab nebula observed by {\it AGILE} and {\it Fermi}-LAT between 2007-2013 reached GeV photon energies and lasted several days. The strongest emission, observed during the 2011 April "super-flare," exceeded the quiescent level by more than an order of magnitude. These observations challenge the standard models for particle acceleration in pulsar wind nebulae, because the radiating electrons have energies exceeding the classical radiation-reaction limit for synchrotron. Particle-in-cell simulations have suggested that the classical synchrotron limit can be exceeded if…
We present a large survey of giant pulses from the Crab Pulsar as observed with the first station of the Long Wavelength Array. Automated methods for detecting giant pulses at low frequencies where scattering becomes prevalent are also explored. More than 1400 pulses were detected across four frequency bands between 20 - 84 MHz over a seven month period beginning in 2013, with additional followup observations in late 2014 and early 2015. A handful of these pulses were detected simultaneously across all four frequency bands. We examine pulse characteristics, including pulse broadening and power…
We analyze the energy dependence of the X-ray pulse profile and the phase-resolved spectra (PRS) of the Crab pulsar using observations from the Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER) and the Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope (Insight-HXMT). We parameterize the pulse profiles and quantify the evolution of these parameters in the broad energy band of 0.4-250 keV. A log-parabola function is used to fit the PRS in 2-250 keV, and the curvature of the spectrum, i.e., the evolution of the photon index with energy, as represented by the parameter \{beta} of the log-parabola model, also chang…
Aims: To investigate the extension of the very-high-energy spectral tail of the Crab pulsar at energies above 400 GeV. Methods: We analyzed $\sim$320 hours of good quality data of Crab with the MAGIC telescope, obtained from February 2007 until April 2014. Results: We report the most energetic pulsed emission ever detected from the Crab pulsar reaching up to 1.5 TeV. The pulse profile shows two narrow peaks synchronized with the ones measured in the GeV energy range. The spectra of the two peaks follow two different power-law functions from 70 GeV up to 1.5 TeV and connect smoothly with the sp…
The High Energy Stereoscopic System (H.E.S.S.) phase I instrument was an array of four $100\,\mathrm{m}^2$ mirror area Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes (IACTs) that has very successfully mapped the sky at photon energies above $\sim 100\,$GeV. Recently, a $600\,\mathrm{m}^2$ telescope was added to the centre of the existing array, which can be operated either in standalone mode or jointly with the four smaller telescopes. The large telescope lowers the energy threshold for gamma-ray observations to several tens of GeV, making the array sensitive at energies where the Fermi-LAT instrume…
Context: The Crab pulsar and its nebula are the origin of relativistic electrons which can be observed through their synchrotron and inverse Compton emission. The transition between synchrotron-dominated and inverse-Compton-dominated emissions takes place at $\approx 10^9$ eV. Aims: The short-term (weeks to months) flux variability of the synchrotron emission from the most energetic electrons is investigated with data from ten years of observations with the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) in the energy range from 60 MeV to 600 MeV. Methods: The off-pulse light-curve has been reconstructed fro…
We present broadband (3 -- 78 keV) NuSTAR X-ray imaging and spectroscopy of the Crab nebula and pulsar. We show that while the phase-averaged and spatially integrated nebula + pulsar spectrum is a power-law in this energy band, spatially resolved spectroscopy of the nebula finds a break at $\sim$9 keV in the spectral photon index of the torus structure with a steepening characterized by $ΔΓ\sim0.25$. We also confirm a previously reported steepening in the pulsed spectrum, and quantify it with a broken power-law with break energy at $\sim$12 keV and $ΔΓ\sim0.27$. We present spectral maps of the…
We develop a simple one-zone model of the steady-state Crab nebula spectrum encompassing both the radio/soft $X$-ray and the GeV/multi-TeV observations. By solving the transport equation for GeV-TeV electrons injected at the wind termination shock as a log-parabola momentum distribution and evolved via energy losses, we determine analytically the resulting differential energy spectrum of photons. We find an impressive agreement with the observed spectrum of synchrotron emission, and the synchrotron self-Compton component reproduces the previously unexplained broad $200$-GeV peak that matches t…
High-energy radiation of young pulsar wind nebulae (PWNe) is known to be variable. This is most prominently exemplified by the Crab nebula which can undergo both rapid brightenings and dimmings. Two pulsars in the Large Magellanic Cloud, PSR J0540-6919 and PSR J0537-6910 are evolutionally very close to Crab, so one may expect the same kind of variability from the PWNe around them as from the Crab nebula. In this work we search for variability in these PWNe in gamma rays using the data from the Fermi Large Area Telescope in the range 100 MeV-10 GeV collected from August 2008 to December 2021. W…
Due to the low gamma-ray fluxes from pulsars above 50 GeV and the small collecting area of space-based telescopes, the gamma-ray emission discovered by the Fermi-LAT in $\sim$150 pulsars is largely unexplored at these energies. In this regime, the uncertainties on the spectral data points and/or the constraints from upper-limits are not sufficient to provide robust tests of competing emission models in individual pulsars. The discovery of power-law-type emission from the Crab pulsar at energies exceeding 100 GeV provides a compelling justification for exploration of other pulsars at these ener…
The high sensitivity of the Fermi-LAT (Large Area Telescope) offers the first opportunity to study faint and extended GeV sources such as pulsar wind nebulae (PWNe). After one year of observation the LAT detected and identified three pulsar wind nebulae: the Crab Nebula, Vela-X and the PWN inside MSH 15-52. In the meantime, the list of LAT detected pulsars increased steadily. These pulsars are characterized by high energy loss rates from ~3 \times 10^{33} erg s$^{-1}$ to 5 \times 10$^{38}$ erg s$^{-1}$ and are therefore likely to power a PWN. This paper summarizes the search for PWNe in the of…
We studied the evolution of the X-ray and gamma-ray spectra of the Crab pulsar utilizing the 11-year observations from the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) and 9-year observations from the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope (FGST). By fitting the spectrum of each observation, we obtained the corresponding flux, and then analysed the long term evolution of the X-ray (or gamma-ray) luminosities as well as their correlations with the spin down power of the pulsar. The X-ray flux in 5-60 keV obtained by the Proportional Counter Array (PCA) of RXTE decreases with a rate of (-2.4+/-0.4)*10^(-14) erg …
In recent years, the Fermi-LAT gamma-ray telescope has detected a population of over 160 gamma-ray pulsars, which has enabled the detailed study of electromagnetic radiation from pulsars at energies above 100 MeV. Further, since the surprising detection of the Crab pulsar in very high-energy (VHE; E > 100 GeV) gamma rays by the MAGIC and VERITAS collaborations, there has been an ongoing effort in the astrophysics community to detect new pulsars in the VHE band. However, the Crab remains the only pulsar so far detected in VHE gamma rays, raising the question of whether or not the Crab is unique…
In the framework of the three-dimensional (3D) annular gap model with reasonable parameters (the magnetic inclination angle α= 45 deg and the view angle ζ= 63 deg), we first use the latest hight energy data to self-consistently calculate radio, X-ray, gamma-ray and TeV (MAGIC and VERITAS) light curves, phase-averaged spectrum and phase-resolved spectra for the Crab pulsar. It is found that the acceleration electric field and potential in the annular gap and core gap are huge enough in the several tens of neutron star radii. The pulsed emission of radio, X-ray, gamma-ray and TeV are mainly gene…
We present long-term density trends of the Earth's upper atmosphere at altitudes between 71 and 116 km, based on atmospheric occultations of the Crab Nebula observed with X-ray astronomy satellites, ASCA, RXTE, Suzaku, NuSTAR, and Hitomi. The combination of the five satellites provides a time period of 28 yr from 1994 to 2022. To suppress seasonal and latitudinal variations, we concentrate on the data taken in autumn (49< doy <111) and spring (235< doy <297) in the northern hemisphere with latitudes of 0--40 degrees. With this constraint, local times are automatically limited either around noo…
The MAGIC stereoscopic system collected 69 hours of Crab Nebula data between October 2009 and April 2011. Analysis of this data sample using the latest improvements in the MAGIC stereoscopic software provided an unprecedented precision of spectral and night-by-night light curve determination at gamma rays. We derived a differential spectrum with a single instrument from 50 GeV up to almost 30 TeV with 5 bins per energy decade. At low energies, MAGIC results, combined with Fermi-LAT data, show a flat and broad Inverse Compton peak. The overall fit to the data between 1 GeV and 30 TeV is not wel…
