The On-orbit Calibrations for the Fermi Large Area Telescope

The Large Area Telescope (LAT) on--board the Fermi Gamma ray Space Telescope began its on--orbit operations on June 23, 2008. Calibrations, defined in a generic sense, correspond to synchronization of trigger signals, optimization of delays for latching data, determination of detector thresholds, gains and responses, evaluation of the perimeter of the South Atlantic Anomaly (SAA), measurements of live time, of absolute time, and internal and spacecraft boresight alignments. Here we describe on orbit calibration results obtained using known astrophysical sources, galactic cosmic rays, and charge injection into the front-end electronics of each detector. Instrument response functions will be described in a separate publication. This paper demonstrates the stability of calibrations and describes minor changes observed since launch. These results have been used to calibrate the LAT datasets to be publicly released in August 2009.Comment: 60 pages, 34 figures, submitted to Astroparticle Physic

Multi-wavelength observations of blazar AO 0235+164 in the 2008-2009 flaring state

The blazar AO 0235+164 (z = 0.94) has been one of the most active objects observed by Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) since its launch in Summer 2008. In addition to the continuous coverage by Fermi, contemporaneous observations were carried out from the radio to γ-ray bands between 2008 September and 2009 February. In this paper, we summarize the rich multi-wavelength data collected during the campaign (including F-GAMMA, GASP-WEBT, Kanata, OVRO, RXTE, SMARTS, Swift, and other instruments), examine the cross-correlation between the light curves measured in the different energy bands, and interpret the resulting spectral energy distributions in the context of well-known blazar emission models. We find that the γ-ray activity is well correlated with a series of near-IR/optical flares, accompanied by an increase in the optical polarization degree. On the other hand, the X-ray light curve shows a distinct 20 day high state of unusually soft spectrum, which does not match the extrapolation of the optical/UV synchrotron spectrum. We tentatively interpret this feature as the bulk Compton emission by cold electrons contained in the jet, which requires an accretion disk corona with an effective covering factor of 19% at a distance of 100 R g. We model the broadband spectra with a leptonic model with external radiation dominated by the infrared emission from the dusty torus. © 2012. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved

Insights into the high-energy γ-ray emission of Markarian 501 from extensive multifrequency observations in the Fermi era

We report on the γ-ray activity of the blazar Mrk 501 during the first 480 days of Fermi operation. We find that the average Large Area Telescope (LAT) γ-ray spectrum of Mrk 501 can be well described by a single power-law function with a photon index of 1.78 ± 0.03. While we observe relatively mild flux variations with the Fermi-LAT (within less than a factor of two), we detect remarkable spectral variability where the hardest observed spectral index within the LAT energy range is 1.52 ± 0.14, and the softest one is 2.51 ± 0.20. These unexpected spectral changes do not correlate with the measured flux variations above 0.3 GeV. In this paper, we also present the first results from the 4.5 month long multifrequency campaign (2009 March 15-August 1) on Mrk 501, which included the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA), Swift, RXTE, MAGIC, and VERITAS, the F-GAMMA, GASP-WEBT, and other collaborations and instruments which provided excellent temporal and energy coverage of the source throughout the entire campaign. The extensive radio to TeV data set from this campaign provides us with the most detailed spectral energy distribution yet collected for this source during its relatively low activity. The average spectral energy distribution of Mrk 501 is well described by the standard one-zone synchrotron self-Compton (SSC) model. In the framework of this model, we find that the dominant emission region is characterized by a size ≲0.1 pc (comparable within a factor of few to the size of the partially resolved VLBA core at 15-43 GHz), and that the total jet power (≃1044 erg s-1) constitutes only a small fraction (∼10-3) of the Eddington luminosity. The energy distribution of the freshly accelerated radiating electrons required to fit the time-averaged data has a broken power-law form in the energy range 0.3 GeV-10 TeV, with spectral indices 2.2 and 2.7 below and above the break energy of 20 GeV. We argue that such a form is consistent with a scenario in which the bulk of the energy dissipation within the dominant emission zone of Mrk 501 is due to relativistic, proton-mediated shocks. We find that the ultrarelativistic electrons and mildly relativistic protons within the blazar zone, if comparable in number, are in approximate energy equipartition, with their energy dominating the jet magnetic field energy by about two orders of magnitude. © 2011. The American Astronomical Society

In vitro Biocompatibility and Genotoxicity Assessment of a Gentamicin-Loaded Monoolein Gel Intended to Treat of Chronic Osteomyelitis

The aim of the study was to assess in vitro the biocompatibility and the genotoxicity of a gentamicin-loaded monoolein gel intended to treat of chronic osteomyelitis. Indeed, we are developing biodegradable implants based on monoolein and gentamicin. The results of formulations, physico-chemical characterization of the formulated implants and in vitro release kinetic of gentamicin from implants were encouraging. As biocompatibility and absence of genotoxicity are the prerequisites for safe use of implants, we performed in vitro hemolysis, cytotoxicity and, genotoxicity tests. Hemolysis was evaluated by incubating human erythrocytes in direct contact with the implant whereas cytotoxicity was evaluated by 3-[4, 5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl]-2, 5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay using fibroblasts and macrophages. Alkaline comet Assay was used to evaluate genotoxic potential of the implants. From these in vitro assays, the implant based on monoolein and gentamicin showed no genotoxic potential and has satisfactory biocompatibility

Multiple Ionization of Ne in coincidence with partially stripped B 2+ ions in the intermediate energy regime

A projectile ion-recoil ion and electron-recoil ion coincidence technique has been used to study the multiple ionization process in collisions of 0.75-4.0MeV B2+ with Ne atoms. Absolute total and partial pure ionization cross sections are reported for the first time at these impact energies with the present setup. The relative contribution of each recoil charge state has been investigated. The experimental data are compared to CDW-EIS calculation and with He2+ projectiles. The data throw further light on the effect of projectile screening in the ionization of multi-electronic targets and provide a support for the validity of the CDW-EIS model in this intermediate-to low velocity regime.Fil:Montanari, C.C. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales; Argentina.Fil:Miraglia, J.E. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales; Argentina