413 research outputs found
Are Particles in Advection-Dominated Accretion Flows Thermal?
We investigate the form of the momentum distribution function for protons and
electrons in an advection-dominated accretion flow (ADAF). We show that for all
accretion rates, Coulomb collisions are too inefficient to thermalize the
protons. The proton distribution function is therefore determined by the
viscous heating mechanism, which is unknown. The electrons, however, can
exchange energy quite efficiently through Coulomb collisions and the emission
and absorption of synchrotron photons. We find that for accretion rates greater
than \sim 10^{-3} of the Eddington accretion rate, the electrons have a thermal
distribution throughout the accretion flow. For lower accretion rates, the
electron distribution function is determined by the electron's source of
heating, which is primarily adiabatic compression. Using the principle of
adiabatic invariance, we show that an adiabatically compressed collisionless
gas maintains a thermal distribution until the particle energies become
relativistic. We derive a new, non-thermal, distribution function which arises
for relativistic energies and provide analytic formulae for the synchrotron
radiation from this distribution. Finally, we discuss its implications for the
emission spectra from ADAFs.Comment: 29 pages (Latex), 3 Figures. Submitted to Ap
Gamma-ray Emission From Advection-Dominated Accretion Flows Around Black Holes: Application to the Galactic Center
We calculate the flux and spectrum of \gamma-rays emitted by a
two-temperature advection-dominated accretion flow (ADAF) around a black hole.
The \gamma-rays are from the decay of neutral pions produced through
proton-proton collisions. We discuss both thermal and power-law distributions
of proton energies and show that the \gamma-ray spectra in the two cases are
very different. We apply the calculations to the \gamma-ray source, 2EG
J1746-2852, detected by EGRET from the direction of the Galactic Center. We
show that the flux and spectrum of this source are consistent with emission
from an ADAF around the supermassive accreting black hole Sgr A^* if the proton
distribution is a power-law. The model uses accretion parameters within the
range made likely by other considerations. If this model is correct, it
provides evidence for the presence of a two temperature plasma in Sgr A^*, and
predicts \gamma-ray fluxes from other accreting black holes which could be
observed with more sensitive detectors.Comment: 19 pages (Latex), 4 Figures. ApJ 486. Revised Tables and Figure
A luminosity constraint on the origin of unidentified high energy sources
The identification of point sources poses a great challenge for the high
energy community. We present a new approach to evaluate the likelihood of a set
of sources being a Galactic population based on the simple assumption that
galaxies similar to the Milky Way host comparable populations of gamma-ray
emitters. We propose a luminosity constraint on Galactic source populations
which complements existing approaches by constraining the abundance and spatial
distribution of any objects of Galactic origin, rather than focusing on the
properties of a specific candidate emitter. We use M31 as a proxy for the Milky
Way, and demonstrate this technique by applying it to the unidentified EGRET
sources. We find that it is highly improbable that the majority of the
unidentified EGRET sources are members of a Galactic halo population (e.g.,
dark matter subhalos), but that current observations do not provide any
constraints on all of these sources being Galactic objects if they reside
entirely in the disk and bulge. Applying this method to upcoming observations
by the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has the potential to exclude association
of an even larger number of unidentified sources with any Galactic source
class.Comment: 18 pages, 4 figures, to appear in JPhys
Study of the Composite Supernova Remnant MSH 11-62
We present the analysis of the X-ray data collected during an observation of
the supernova remnant (SNR) MSH 11-62 by the Advanced Satellite for Cosmology
and Astrophysics (ASCA). We show that MSH 11-62 is a composite remnant whose
X-ray emission comes from two distinct contributions. Nonthermal, synchrotron
emission, localized to a region of radius (~~)3' (consistent with a point
source) dominates the total flux above 2 keV. A second contribution comes from
a thermal component, extended up to a radius of (~~)6' and detected only at
energies below 2keV. The spatial and spectral analysis imply the presence of a
neutron star losing energy at a rate of about (10**36 - 10**37) ergs/s. No
pulsed emission is detected and we set a limit on the pulsed fraction of 10%.
This is consistent with the lack of a radio pulsar in the remnant, which may
indicate that the pulsed emission from the rapidly rotating compact object that
should be powering the synchrotron nebula is beamed and our viewing direction
is unfavorable. In either event, the central neutron star deposits much of its
spin-down energy into the surrounding synchrotron nebula where, through direct
imaging with broadband satellites such as ASCA, it is possible to study the
energetics and evolution of the compact remnant.Comment: 30 pages, including 5 figures, Latex. To appear in ApJ (May 20, 1998
issue, Vol. 499.
Variability of EGRET Gamma-Ray Sources
The variability of the high-energy gamma ray sources in the Third EGRET
catalog is analyzed by a new method. We re-analyze the EGRET data to calculate
a likelihood function for the flux of each source in each observation, both for
detections and upper limits. These functions can be combined in a uniform
manner with a simple model of the flux distribution to characterize the flux
variation by a confidence interval for the relative standard deviation of the
flux. The main result is a table of these values for almost all the cataloged
sources. As expected, the identified pulsars are steady emitters and the
blazars are mostly highly variable. The unidentified sources are heterogeneous,
with greater variation at higher Galactic latitude. There is an indication that
pulsar wind nebulae are associated with variable sources. There is a population
of variable sources along the Galactic plane, concentrated in the inner spiral
arms.Comment: Accepted by ApJ. 13 pages, 3 figures, 2 tables. Machine-readable
copies of Table 1 are at http://giants.stanford.edu/~pln/vartbl1
MAGIC observations of very high energy gamma-rays from HESS J1813-178
Recently, the HESS collaboration has reported the detection of gamma-ray
emission above a few hundred GeV from eight new sources located close to the
Galactic Plane. The source HESS J1813-178 has sparked particular interest, as
subsequent radio observations imply an association with SNR G12.82-0.02.
Triggered by the detection in VHE gamma-rays, a positionally coincident source
has also been found in INTEGRAL and ASCA data. In this Letter we present MAGIC
observations of HESS J1813-178, resulting in the detection of a differential
gamma-ray flux consistent with a hard-slope power law, described as dN/(dA dt
dE) = (3.3+/-0.5)*10^{-12} (E/TeV)^{-2.1+/-0.2} cm^(-2)s^(-1)TeV^(-1). We
briefly discuss the observational technique used, the procedure implemented for
the data analysis, and put this detection in the perspective of multifrequency
observations.Comment: Accepted by ApJ Letter
Discovery of Very High Energy gamma-rays from 1ES 1011+496 at z=0.212
We report on the discovery of Very High Energy (VHE) gamma-ray emission from
the BL Lacertae object 1ES1011+496. The observation was triggered by an optical
outburst in March 2007 and the source was observed with the MAGIC telescope
from March to May 2007. Observing for 18.7 hr we find an excess of 6.2 sigma
with an integrated flux above 200 GeV of (1.58 photons
cm s. The VHE gamma-ray flux is >40% higher than in March-April
2006 (reported elsewhere), indicating that the VHE emission state may be
related to the optical emission state. We have also determined the redshift of
1ES1011+496 based on an optical spectrum that reveals the absorption lines of
the host galaxy. The redshift of z=0.212 makes 1ES1011+496 the most distant
source observed to emit VHE gamma-rays up to date.Comment: 4 pages, 6 figures, minor changes to fit the ApJ versio
Unfolding of differential energy spectra in the MAGIC experiment
The paper describes the different methods, used in the MAGIC experiment, to
unfold experimental energy distributions of cosmic ray particles (gamma-rays).
Questions and problems related to the unfolding are discussed. Various
procedures are proposed which can help to make the unfolding robust and
reliable. The different methods and procedures are implemented in the MAGIC
software and are used in most of the analyses.Comment: Submitted to NIM
First bounds on the very high energy gamma-ray emission from Arp 220
Using the Major Atmospheric Gamma Imaging Cherenkov Telescope (MAGIC), we
have observed the nearest ultra-luminous infrared galaxy Arp 220 for about 15
hours. No significant signal was detected within the dedicated amount of
observation time. The first upper limits to the very high energy -ray
flux of Arp 220 are herein reported and compared with theoretical expectations.Comment: Accepted for publication in Ap
Implementation of the Random Forest Method for the Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescope MAGIC
The paper describes an application of the tree classification method Random
Forest (RF), as used in the analysis of data from the ground-based gamma
telescope MAGIC. In such telescopes, cosmic gamma-rays are observed and have to
be discriminated against a dominating background of hadronic cosmic-ray
particles. We describe the application of RF for this gamma/hadron separation.
The RF method often shows superior performance in comparison with traditional
semi-empirical techniques. Critical issues of the method and its implementation
are discussed. An application of the RF method for estimation of a continuous
parameter from related variables, rather than discrete classes, is also
discussed.Comment: 16 pages, 8 figure
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