115 research outputs found
Characterization of the Inner Knot of the Crab: The Site of the Gamma-ray Flares?
One of the most intriguing results from the gamma-ray instruments in orbit
has been the detection of powerful flares from the Crab Nebula. These flares
challenge our understanding of pulsar wind nebulae and models for particle
acceleration. We report on the portion of a multiwavelength campaign using
Keck, HST, and Chandra concentrating on a small emitting region, the Crab's
inner knot, located a fraction of an arcsecond from the pulsar.
We find that the knot's radial size, tangential size, peak flux, and the
ratio of the flux to that of the pulsar are correlated with the projected
distance of the knot from the pulsar. A new approach, using singular value
decomposition for analyzing time series of images, was introduced yielding
results consistent with the more traditional methods while some uncertainties
were substantially reduced.
We exploit the characterization of the knot to discuss constraints on
standard shock-model parameters that may be inferred from our observations
assuming the inner knot lies near to the shocked surface. These include
inferences as to wind magnetization, shock shape parameters such as incident
angle and poloidal radius of curvature, as well as the IR/optical emitting
particle enthalpy fraction. We find that while the standard shock model gives
good agreement with observation in many respects, there remain two puzzles: (a)
The observed angular size of the knot relative to the pulsar--knot separation
is much smaller than expected; (b) The variable, yet high degree of
polarization reported is difficult to reconcile with a highly relativistic
downstream flow.Comment: 46 pages, 14 figures, submitted to the Astrophysical Journa
Distinguishing parity-switching mechanisms in a superconducting qubit
Single-charge tunneling is a decoherence mechanism affecting superconducting
qubits, yet the origin of excess quasiparticle excitations (QPs) responsible
for this tunneling in superconducting devices is not fully understood. We
measure the flux dependence of charge-parity (or simply, ``parity'') switching
in an offset-charge-sensitive transmon qubit to identify the contributions of
photon-assisted parity switching and QP generation to the overall
parity-switching rate. The parity-switching rate exhibits a
qubit-state-dependent peak in the flux dependence, indicating a cold
distribution of excess QPs which are predominantly trapped in the low-gap film
of the device. Moreover, we find that the photon-assisted process contributes
significantly to both parity switching and the generation of excess QPs by
fitting to a model that self-consistently incorporates photon-assisted parity
switching as well as inter-film QP dynamics
High-Fidelity, Frequency-Flexible Two-Qubit Fluxonium Gates with a Transmon Coupler
We propose and demonstrate an architecture for fluxonium-fluxonium two-qubit
gates mediated by transmon couplers (FTF, for fluxonium-transmon-fluxonium).
Relative to architectures that exclusively rely on a direct coupling between
fluxonium qubits, FTF enables stronger couplings for gates using
non-computational states while simultaneously suppressing the static
controlled-phase entangling rate () down to kHz levels, all without
requiring strict parameter matching. Here we implement FTF with a flux-tunable
transmon coupler and demonstrate a microwave-activated controlled-Z (CZ) gate
whose operation frequency can be tuned over a 2 GHz range, adding frequency
allocation freedom for FTF's in larger systems. Across this range,
state-of-the-art CZ gate fidelities were observed over many bias points and
reproduced across the two devices characterized in this work. After optimizing
both the operation frequency and the gate duration, we achieved peak CZ
fidelities in the 99.85-99.9\% range. Finally, we implemented model-free
reinforcement learning of the pulse parameters to boost the mean gate fidelity
up to , averaged over roughly an hour between scheduled
training runs. Beyond the microwave-activated CZ gate we present here, FTF can
be applied to a variety of other fluxonium gate schemes to improve gate
fidelities and passively reduce unwanted interactions.Comment: 23 pages, 16 figure
Evolution of Flux Noise in Superconducting Qubits with Weak Magnetic Fields
The microscopic origin of magnetic flux noise in superconducting
circuits has remained an open question for several decades despite extensive
experimental and theoretical investigation. Recent progress in superconducting
devices for quantum information has highlighted the need to mitigate sources of
qubit decoherence, driving a renewed interest in understanding the underlying
noise mechanism(s). Though a consensus has emerged attributing flux noise to
surface spins, their identity and interaction mechanisms remain unclear,
prompting further study. Here we apply weak in-plane magnetic fields to a
capacitively-shunted flux qubit (where the Zeeman splitting of surface spins
lies below the device temperature) and study the flux-noise-limited qubit
dephasing, revealing previously unexplored trends that may shed light on the
dynamics behind the emergent noise. Notably, we observe an enhancement
(suppression) of the spin-echo (Ramsey) pure dephasing time in fields up to
. With direct noise spectroscopy, we further observe a
transition from a to approximately Lorentzian frequency dependence below
10 Hz and a reduction of the noise above 1 MHz with increasing magnetic field.
We suggest that these trends are qualitatively consistent with an increase of
spin cluster sizes with magnetic field. These results should help to inform a
complete microscopic theory of flux noise in superconducting circuits
Multiwavelength Evidence for Quasi-periodic Modulation in the Gamma-ray Blazar PG 1553+113
We report for the first time a gamma-ray and multi-wavelength nearly-periodic
oscillation in an active galactic nucleus. Using the Fermi Large Area Telescope
(LAT) we have discovered an apparent quasi-periodicity in the gamma-ray flux (E
>100 MeV) from the GeV/TeV BL Lac object PG 1553+113. The marginal significance
of the 2.18 +/-0.08 year-period gamma-ray cycle is strengthened by correlated
oscillations observed in radio and optical fluxes, through data collected in
the OVRO, Tuorla, KAIT, and CSS monitoring programs and Swift UVOT. The optical
cycle appearing in ~10 years of data has a similar period, while the 15 GHz
oscillation is less regular than seen in the other bands. Further long-term
multi-wavelength monitoring of this blazar may discriminate among the possible
explanations for this quasi-periodicity.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures. Accepted to The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
Corresponding authors: S. Ciprini (ASDC/INFN), S. Cutini (ASDC/INFN), S.
Larsson (Stockholm Univ/KTH), A. Stamerra (INAF/SNS), D. J. Thompson (NASA
GSFC
The radio/gamma-ray connection in Active Galactic Nuclei in the era of the Fermi Large Area Telescope
We present a detailed statistical analysis of the correlation between radio
and gamma-ray emission of the Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) detected by Fermi
during its first year of operation, with the largest datasets ever used for
this purpose. We use both archival interferometric 8.4 GHz data (from the VLA
and ATCA, for the full sample of 599 sources) and concurrent single-dish 15 GHz
measurements from the Owens Valley Radio Observatory (OVRO, for a sub sample of
199 objects). Our unprecedentedly large sample permits us to assess with high
accuracy the statistical significance of the correlation, using a
surrogate-data method designed to simultaneously account for common-distance
bias and the effect of a limited dynamical range in the observed quantities. We
find that the statistical significance of a positive correlation between the cm
radio and the broad band (E>100 MeV) gamma-ray energy flux is very high for the
whole AGN sample, with a probability <1e-7 for the correlation appearing by
chance. Using the OVRO data, we find that concurrent data improve the
significance of the correlation from 1.6e-6 to 9.0e-8. Our large sample size
allows us to study the dependence of correlation strength and significance on
specific source types and gamma-ray energy band. We find that the correlation
is very significant (chance probability <1e-7) for both FSRQs and BL Lacs
separately; a dependence of the correlation strength on the considered
gamma-ray energy band is also present, but additional data will be necessary to
constrain its significance.Comment: Accepted for publications by ApJ. Contact authors: M. Giroletti, V.
Pavlidou, A. Reime
Fermi/LAT discovery of gamma-ray emission from a relativistic jet in the narrow-line quasar PMN J0948+0022
We report the discovery by the Large Area Telescope (LAT) onboard the Fermi
Gamma-ray Space Telescope of high-energy gamma-ray emission from the peculiar
quasar PMN J0948+0022 (z=0.5846). The optical spectrum of this object exhibits
rather narrow Hbeta (FWHM(Hbeta) ~ 1500 km s^-1), weak forbidden lines and is
therefore classified as a narrow-line type I quasar. This class of objects is
thought to have relatively small black hole mass and to accrete at high
Eddington ratio. The radio loudness and variability of the compact radio core
indicates the presence of a relativistic jet. Quasi simultaneous
radio-optical-X-ray and gamma-ray observations are presented. Both radio and
gamma-ray emission (observed over 5-months) are strongly variable. The
simultaneous optical and X-ray data from Swift show a blue continuum attributed
to the accretion disk and a hard X-ray spectrum attributed to the jet. The
resulting broad band spectral energy distribution (SED) and, in particular, the
gamma-ray spectrum measured by Fermi are similar to those of more powerful
FSRQ. A comparison of the radio and gamma-ray characteristics of PMN J0948+0022
with the other blazars detected by LAT shows that this source has a relatively
low radio and gamma-ray power, with respect to other FSRQ. The physical
parameters obtained from modelling the SED also fall at the low power end of
the FSRQ parameter region discussed in Celotti & Ghisellini (2008). We suggest
that the similarity of the SED of PMN J0948+0022 to that of more massive and
more powerful quasars can be understood in a scenario in which the SED
properties depend on the Eddington ratio rather than on the absolute power.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication on ApJ Main Journal.
Corresponding author: L. Foschin
PKS 1502+106: a new and distant gamma-ray blazar in outburst discovered by the Fermi Large Area Telescope
The Large Area Telescope (LAT) on board the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope
discovered a rapid (about 5 days duration), high-energy (E >100 MeV) gamma-ray
outburst from a source identified with the blazar PKS 1502+106 (OR 103, S3
1502+10, z=1.839) starting on August 05, 2008 and followed by bright and
variable flux over the next few months. Results on the gamma-ray localization
and identification, as well as spectral and temporal behavior during the first
months of the Fermi all-sky survey are reported here in conjunction with a
multi-waveband characterization as a result of one of the first Fermi
multi-frequency campaigns. The campaign included a Swift ToO (followed up by
16-day observations on August 07-22, MJD 54685-54700), VLBA (within the MOJAVE
program), Owens Valley (OVRO) 40m, Effelsberg-100m, Metsahovi-14m, RATAN-600
and Kanata-Hiroshima radio/optical observations. Results from the analysis of
archival observations by INTEGRAL, XMM-Newton and Spitzer space telescopes are
reported for a more complete picture of this new gamma-ray blazar.Comment: 17 pages, 11 figures, accepted for The Astrophysical Journa
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