Search for variable gamma-ray emission from the Galactic plane in the Fermi data

High-energy gamma-ray emission from the Galactic plane above ~100 MeV is composed of three main contributions: diffuse emission from cosmic ray interactions in the interstellar medium, emission from extended sources, such as supernova remnants and pulsar wind nebulae, and emission from isolated compact source populations. The diffuse emission and emission from the extended sources provide the dominant contribution to the flux almost everywhere in the inner Galaxy, preventing the detection of isolated compact sources. In spite of this difficulty, compact sources in the Galactic plane can be singled out based on the variability properties of their gamma-ray emission. Our aim is to find sources in the Fermi data that show long-term variability. We performed a systematic study of the emission variability from the Galactic plane, by constructing the variability maps. We find that emission from several directions along the Galactic plane is significantly variable on a time scale of months. These directions include, in addition to known variable Galactic sources and background blazars, the Galactic ridge region at positive Galactic longitudes and several regions containing young pulsars. We argue that variability on the time scale of months may be common to pulsars, originating from the inner parts of pulsar wind nebulae, similarly to what is observed in the Crab pulsar.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, accepted to Astronomy & Astrophysic

Acceleration of Ultra-High Energy Cosmic Rays in the Colliding Shells of Blazars and GRBs: Constraints from the Fermi Gamma ray Space Telescope

Fermi Gamma ray Space Telescope measurements of spectra, variability time scale, and maximum photon energy give lower limits to the apparent jet powers and, through gammagamma opacity arguments, the bulk Lorentz factors of relativistic jets. The maximum cosmic-ray particle energy is limited by these two quantities in Fermi acceleration scenarios. Recent data are used to constrain the maximum energies of cosmic-ray protons and Fe nuclei accelerated in colliding shells of GRBs and blazars. The Fermi results indicate that Fe rather than protons are more likely to be accelerated to ultra-high energies in AGNs, whereas powerful GRBs can accelerate both protons and Fe to >~ 10^{20} eV. Emissivity of nonthermal radiation from radio galaxies and blazars is estimated from the First Fermi AGN Catalog, and shown to favor BL Lac objects and FR1 radio galaxies over flat spectrum radio quasars, FR2 radio galaxies, and long-duration GRBs as the sources of UHECRs.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures, ApJ, in pres

PSR J2030+3641: radio discovery and gamma-ray study of a middle-aged pulsar in the now identified Fermi-LAT source 1FGL J2030.0+3641

In a radio search with the Green Bank Telescope of three unidentified low Galactic latitude Fermi-LAT sources, we have discovered the middle-aged pulsar J2030+3641, associated with 1FGL J2030.0+3641 (2FGL J2030.0+3640). Following the detection of gamma-ray pulsations using a radio ephemeris, we have obtained a phase-coherent timing solution based on gamma-ray and radio pulse arrival times that spans the entire Fermi mission. With a rotation period of 0.2 s, spin-down luminosity of 3e34 erg/s, and characteristic age of 0.5 Myr, PSR J2030+3641 is a middle-aged neutron star with spin parameters similar to those of the exceedingly gamma-ray-bright and radio-undetected Geminga. Its gamma-ray flux is 1% that of Geminga, primarily because of its much larger distance, as suggested by the large integrated column density of free electrons, DM=246 pc/cc. We fit the gamma-ray light curve, along with limited radio polarimetric constraints, to four geometrical models of magnetospheric emission, and while none of the fits have high significance some are encouraging and suggest that further refinements of these models may be worthwhile. We argue that not many more non-millisecond radio pulsars may be detected along the Galactic plane that are responsible for LAT sources, but that modified methods to search for gamma-ray pulsations should be productive -- PSR J2030+3641 would have been found blindly in gamma rays if only >0.8 GeV photons had been considered, owing to its relatively flat spectrum and location in a region of high soft background.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ, 9 pages, 6 figure

On leptonic models for blazars in the Fermi era

Some questions raised by Fermi-LAT data about blazars are summarized, along with attempts at solutions within the context of leptonic models. These include both spectral and statistical questions, including the origin of the GeV breaks in low-synchrotron peaked blazars, the location of the gamma-ray emission sites, the correlations in the spectral energy distributions with luminosity, and the difficulty of synchrotron/SSC models to fit the spectra of some TeV blazars.Comment: 9 pages, 1 figure, in "Beamed and Unbeamed Gamma Rays from Galaxies," Muonio, Finland, 11-15 April, 2011, ed. R. Wagner, L. Maraschi, A. Sillanpaa, to appear in Journal of Physics: Conference Serie

The bright unidentified gamma-ray source 1FGL J1227.9-4852: Can it be associated with an LMXB?

We present an analysis of high energy (HE; 0.1-300 GeV) gamma-ray observations of 1FGL J1227.9-4852 with the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, follow-up radio observations with the Australia Telescope Compact Array, Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope and Parkes radio telescopes of the same field and follow-up optical observations with the ESO VLT. We also examine archival XMM-Newton and INTEGRAL X-ray observations of the region around this source. The gamma-ray spectrum of 1FGL J1227.9-4852 is best fit with an exponentially cutoff power-law, reminiscent of the population of pulsars observed by Fermi. A previously unknown, compact radio source within the 99.7% error circle of 1FGL J1227.9-4852 is discovered and has a morphology consistent either with an AGN core/jet structure or with two roughly symmetric lobes of a distant radio galaxy. A single bright X-ray source XSS J12270-4859, a low-mass X-ray binary, also lies within the 1FGL J1227.9-4852 error circle and we report the first detection of radio emission from this source. The potential association of 1FGL J1227.9-4852 with each of these counterparts is discussed. Based upon the available data we find the association of the gamma-ray source to the compact double radio source unlikely and suggest that XSS J12270-4859 is a more likely counterpart to the new HE source. We propose that XSS J12270-4859 may be a millisecond binary pulsar and draw comparisons with PSR J1023+0038.Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS; 9 pages, 8 figures, 2 table

Conservative upper limits on WIMP annihilation cross section from Fermi-LAT γ\gamma-rays

The spectrum of an isotropic extragalactic $\gamma$-ray background (EGB) has been measured by the Fermi-LAT telescope at high latitudes. Two new models for the EGB are derived from the subtraction of unresolved point sources and extragalactic diffuse processes, which could explain from 30% to 70% of the Fermi-LAT EGB. Within the hypothesis that the two residual EGBs are entirely due to the annihilation of dark matter (DM) particles in the Galactic halo, we obtain $conservative$ upper limits on their annihilation cross section \sigmav. Severe bounds on a possible Sommerfeld enhancement of the annihilation cross section are set as well. Finally, would {\sigmav} be inversely proportional to the WIMP velocity, very severe limits are derived for the velocity-independent part of the annihilation cross section.Comment: Proceedings of XII Taup Conference, Munich, September 201

Variable Gamma-ray Emission Induced by Ultra-High Energy Neutral Beams: Application to 4C +21.35

The flat spectrum radio quasar (FSRQ) 4C +21.35 (PKS 1222+216) displays prominent nuclear infrared emission from ~1200 K dust. A 70 -- 400 GeV flare with ~10 min variations during half an hour of observations was found by the MAGIC telescopes, and GeV variability was observed on sub-day timescales with the Large Area Telescope on Fermi. We examine 4C +21.35, assuming that it is a source of ultra-high energy cosmic rays (UHECRs). UHECR proton acceleration in the inner jet powers a neutral beam of neutrinos, neutrons and gamma rays from photopion production. The radiative efficiency and production spectra of neutrals formed through photohadronic processes with isotropic external target photons of the broad line region and torus are calculated. Secondary radiations made by this process have a beaming factor ~\delta^5, where \delta is the Doppler factor. The pair-production optical depth for gamma rays and the photopion efficiency for UHECR neutrons as they pass through external isotropic radiation fields are calculated. If target photons come from the broad line region and dust torus, large Doppler factors, \delta >~100 are required to produce rapidly variable secondary radiation with isotropic luminosity >~1e47 erg/s at the pc scale. The \gamma-ray spectra from leptonic secondaries are calculated from cascades initiated by the UHECR neutron beam at the pc-scale region and fit to the flaring spectrum of 4C +21.35. Detection of >~100 TeV neutrinos from 4C +21.35 or other VHE blazars with IceCube or KM3NeT would confirm this scenario.Comment: 21 pages, 13 figures; replaced 4 figures to show neutron and neutrino production from combined infrared and broad-line region radiation fields; added references and improvements; ApJ, in pres

Extragalactic Very-High-Energy gamma-ray background

We study the origin of the extragalactic diffuse gamma-ray background using the data from the Fermi telescope. To estimate the background level, we count photons at high Galactic latitudes |b|>60 degrees. Subtracting photons associated to known sources and the residual cosmic ray and Galactic diffuse backgrounds, we estimate the Extragalactic Gamma-ray Background (EGB) flux. We find that the spectrum of EGB in the very-high-energy (VHE) band above 30 GeV follows the stacked spectrum of BL Lacs. LAT data reveal the positive (1+z)^k, 1<k<4 cosmological evolution of the BL Lac source population consistent with that of their parent population, FR I radio galaxies. We show that EGB at E>30 GeV could be completely explained by emission from unresolved BL Lacs if k~3.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures, accepted to Astrophysics Journa

Timing Signatures of the Internal-Shock Model for Blazars

We investigate the spectral and timing signatures of the internal-shock model for blazars. For this purpose, we develop a semi-analytical model for the time-dependent radiative output from internal shocks arising from colliding relativistic shells in a blazar jet. The emission through synchrotron and synchrotron-self Compton (SSC) radiation as well as Comptonization of an isotropic external radiation field are taken into account. We evaluate the discrete correlation function (DCF) of the model light curves in order to evaluate features of photon-energy dependent time lags and the quality of the correlation, represented by the peak value of the DCF. The almost completely analytic nature of our approach allows us to study in detail the influence of various model parameters on the resulting spectral and timing features. This paper focuses on a range of parameters in which the gamma-ray production is dominated by Comptonization of external radiation, most likely appropriate for gamma-ray bright flat-spectrum radio quasars (FSRQs) or low-frequency peaked BL Lac objects (LBLs). In most cases relevant for FSRQs and LBLs, the variability of the optical emission is highly correlated with the X-ray and high-energy (HE: > 100 MeV) gamma-ray emission. Our baseline model predicts a lead of the optical variability with respect to the higher-energy bands by 1 - 2 hours and of the HE gamma-rays before the X-rays by about 1 hour. We show that variations of certain parameters may lead to changing signs of inter-band time lags, potentially explaining the lack of persistent trends of time lags in most blazars.Comment: Accepted for publication in Ap

Impact of the orbital uncertainties on the timing of pulsars in binary systems

The detection of pulsations from an X-ray binary is an unambiguous signature of the presence of a neutron star in the system. When the pulsations are missed in the radio band, their detection at other wavelengths, like X-ray or gamma-rays, requires orbital demodulation, since the length of the observations are often comparable to, or longer than the system orbital period. The detailed knowledge of the orbital parameters of binary systems plays a crucial role in the detection of the spin period of pulsars, since any uncertainty in their determination translates into a loss in the coherence of the signal during the demodulation process. In this paper, we present an analytical study aimed at unveiling how the uncertainties in the orbital parameters might impact on periodicity searches. We find a correlation between the power of the signal in the demodulated arrival time series and the uncertainty in each of the orbital parameters. This correlation is also a function of the pulsar frequency. We test our analytical results with numerical simulations, finding good agreement between them. Finally, we apply our study to the cases of LS 5039 and LS I +61 303 and consider the current level of uncertainties in the orbital parameters of these systems and their impact on a possible detection of a hosted pulsar. We also discuss the possible appearance of a sideband ambiguity in real data. The latter can occur when, due to the use of uncertain orbital parameters, the power of a putative pulsar is distributed in frequencies lying nearby the pulsar period. Even if the appearance of a sideband is already a signature of a pulsar component, it may introduce an ambiguity in the determination of its period. We present here a method to solve the sideband issue.Comment: Accepted 2012 September 08 by MNRAS. The paper contains 18 figures and 5 table