Multi-messenger observations of a binary neutron star merger

On 2017 August 17 a binary neutron star coalescence candidate (later designated GW170817) with merger time 12:41:04 UTC was observed through gravitational waves by the Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo detectors. The Fermi Gamma-ray Burst Monitor independently detected a gamma-ray burst (GRB 170817A) with a time delay of ~1.7 s with respect to the merger time. From the gravitational-wave signal, the source was initially localized to a sky region of 31 deg2 at a luminosity distance of 40+8-8 Mpc and with component masses consistent with neutron stars. The component masses were later measured to be in the range 0.86 to 2.26 Mo. An extensive observing campaign was launched across the electromagnetic spectrum leading to the discovery of a bright optical transient (SSS17a, now with the IAU identification of AT 2017gfo) in NGC 4993 (at ~40 Mpc) less than 11 hours after the merger by the One- Meter, Two Hemisphere (1M2H) team using the 1 m Swope Telescope. The optical transient was independently detected by multiple teams within an hour. Subsequent observations targeted the object and its environment. Early ultraviolet observations revealed a blue transient that faded within 48 hours. Optical and infrared observations showed a redward evolution over ~10 days. Following early non-detections, X-ray and radio emission were discovered at the transient’s position ~9 and ~16 days, respectively, after the merger. Both the X-ray and radio emission likely arise from a physical process that is distinct from the one that generates the UV/optical/near-infrared emission. No ultra-high-energy gamma-rays and no neutrino candidates consistent with the source were found in follow-up searches. These observations support the hypothesis that GW170817 was produced by the merger of two neutron stars in NGC4993 followed by a short gamma-ray burst (GRB 170817A) and a kilonova/macronova powered by the radioactive decay of r-process nuclei synthesized in the ejecta

MAGIC and Fermi-LAT gamma-ray results on unassociated HAWC sources

The HAWC Collaboration released the 2HWC catalogue of TeV sources, in which 19 show no association with any known high-energy (HE; E greater than or similar to 10 GeV) or very-high-energy (VHE; E greater than or similar to 300 GeV) sources. This catalogue motivated follow-up studies by both the Major Atmospheric Gamma-ray Imaging Cherenkov (MAGIC) and Fermi-LAT (Large Area Telescope) observatories with the aim of investigating gamma-ray emission over a broad energy band. In this paper, we report the results from the first joint work between High Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC), MAGIC, and Fermi-LAT on three unassociated HAWC sources: 2HWC J2006+341, 2HWC J1907+084*, and 2HWC J1852+013*. Although no significant detection was found in the HE and VHE regimes, this investigation shows that a minimum 1 degrees extension (at 95 per cent confidence level) and harder spectrum in the GeV than the one extrapolated from HAWC results are required in the case of 2HWC J1852+013*, whilst a simply minimum extension of 0.16 degrees (at 95 per cent confidence level) can already explain the scenario proposed by HAWC for the remaining sources. Moreover, the hypothesis that these sources are pulsar wind nebulae is also investigated in detail

CALIFA, the Calar Alto Legacy Integral Field Area survey IV. Third public data release

This paper describes the Third Public Data Release (DR3) of the Calar Alto Legacy Integral Field Area (CALIFA) survey. Science-grade quality data for 667 galaxies are made public, including the 200 galaxies of the Second Public Data Release (DR2). Data were obtained with the integral-field spectrograph PMAS/PPak mounted on the 3.5m telescope at the Calar Alto Observatory. Three different spectral setups are available: i) a low-resolution V500 setup covering the wavelength range 3745–7500 Å (4240-7140 Å unvignetted) with a spectral resolution of 6.0 Å (FWHM) for 646 galaxies, ii) a medium-resolution V1200 setup covering the wavelength range 3650–4840 Å (3650-4620 Å unvignetted) with a spectral resolution of 2.3 Å (FWHM) for 484 galaxies, and iii) the combination of the cubes from both setups (called COMBO) with a spectral resolution of 6.0 Å and a wavelength range between 3700-7500 Å (3700-7140 Å unvignetted) for 446 galaxies. The Main Sample, selected and observed according to the CALIFA survey strategy covers a redshift range between 0.005 and 0.03, spans the color-magnitude diagram and probes a wide range of stellar masses, ionization conditions, and morphological types. The Extension Sample covers several types of galaxies that are rare in the overall galaxy population and are therefore not numerous or absent in the CALIFA Main Sample. All the cubes in the data release were processed using the latest pipeline, which includes improved versions of the calibration frames and an even further improved image reconstruction quality. In total, the third data release contains 1576 datacubes, including ∼1.5 million independent spectra. It is available at http://califa.caha.es/DR3.CALIFA is the first legacy survey being performed at Calar Alto. The CALIFA collaboration would like to thank the IAA-CSIC and MPIAMPG as major partners of the observatory, and CAHA itself, for the unique access to telescope time and support in manpower and infrastructures. The CALIFA collaboration thanks also the CAHA staff for the dedication to this project. We thank the anonymous referee for his/her help in improving this article. SFS thanks the director of CEFCA, M. Moles, for his sincere support to this project. SFS thanks the CONACYT-125180 and DGAPA-IA100815 projects for providing him support in this study. RGB, RGD, and EP are supported by grants AYA2014-57490-P and JA-FQM-2828. SZ is supported by the EU Marie Curie Integration Grant “SteMaGE” Nr. PCIG12-GA-2012-326466 (Call Identifier: FP7-PEOPLE-2012 CIG). J. F-B. from grant AYA2013-48226-C3-1-P from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO), as well as from the FP7 Marie Curie Actions of the European Commission, via the Initial Training Network DAGAL under REA grant agreement number 289313 B.G-L- acknowledges financial support by the Spanish MINECO under grants AYA2013- 41656-P and AYA2015-68217-P Support for L.G. is provided by the Ministry of Economy, Development, and Tourism’s Millennium Science Initiative through grant IC12009, awarded to The Millennium Institute of Astrophysics, MAS. L.G. also acknowledges support by CONICYT through FONDECYT grant 3140566. and AYA2013-42227-P from the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación and TIC 114 and PO08-TIC-3531 from Junta de Andalucía. AG acknowledges support from the FP7/2007-2013 under grant agreement n. 267251 (AstroFIt). RAM was funded by the Spanish programme of International Campus of Excellence Moncloa (CEI). JMA acknowledges support from the European Research Council Starting Grant (SEDmorph; P.I. V. Wild). IM and AdO acknowledge the support by the projects AYA2010-15196 from the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación and TIC 114 and PO08-TIC-3531 from Junta de Andalucía. AMI acknowledges support from Agence Nationale de la Recherche through the STILISM project (ANR-12-BS05-0016-02). MM acknowledges financial support from AYA2010-21887-C04-02 from the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad. PSB acknowledges support from the Ramón y Cajal program, grant ATA2010-21322-C03-02 from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO). CJW acknowledges support through the Marie Curie Career Integration Grant 303912. VW acknowledges support from the European Research Council Starting Grant (SEDMorph P.I. V. Wild) and European Career Re-integration Grant (Phiz-Ev P.I. V. Wild). YA acknowledges financial support from the Ramón y Cajal programme (RyC-2011-09461) and project AYA2013-47742-C4-3-P, both managed by the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad, as well as the ‘Study of Emission-Line Galaxies with Integral-Field Spectroscopy’ (SELGIFS) programme, funded by the EU (FP7-PEOPLE-2013- IRSES-612701) within the Marie-Sklodowska-Curie Actions scheme. ROM acknowledges support from CAPES (Brazil) through a PDJ fellowship from project 88881.030413/2013-01, program CSF-PVE.This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from EDP Sciences via http://dx.doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/20162866

Search for gamma-rays from the unusually bright GRB 130427a with the hawc gamma-ray observatory

The first limits on the prompt emission from the long gamma-ray burst (GRB) 130427A in the >100 GeV energy band are reported. GRB 130427A was the most powerful burst ever detected with a redshift z ≲ 0.5 and featured the longest lasting emission above 100 MeV. The energy spectrum extends at least up to 95 GeV, clearly in the range observable by the High Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) Gamma-Ray Observatory, a new extensive air shower detector currently under construction in central Mexico. The burst occurred under unfavorable observation conditions, low in the sky and when HAWC was running 10% of the final detector. Based on the observed light curve at MeV-GeV energies, eight different time periods have been searched for prompt and delayed emission from this GRB. In all cases, no statistically significant excess of counts has been found and upper limits have been placed. It is shown that a similar GRB close to zenith would be easily detected by the full HAWC detector, which will be completed soon. The detection rate of the full HAWC detector may be as high as one to two GRBs per year. A detection could provide important information regarding the high energy processes at work and the observation of a possible cut-off beyond the Fermi Large Area Telescope energy range could be the signature of gamma-ray absorption, either in the GRB or along the line of sight due to the extragalactic background light

All-sky Measurement of the Anisotropy of Cosmic Rays at 10 TeV and Mapping of the Local Interstellar Magnetic Field

We present the first full-sky analysis of the cosmic ray arrival direction distribution with data collected by the High-Altitude Water Cherenkov and IceCube observatories in the northern and southern hemispheres at the same median primary particle energy of 10 TeV. The combined sky map and angular power spectrum largely eliminate biases that result from partial sky coverage and present a key to probe into the propagation properties of TeV cosmic rays through our local interstellar medium and the interaction between the interstellar and heliospheric magnetic fields. From the map, we determine the horizontal dipole components of the anisotropy δ 0h = 9.16 ×10-4 and δ 6h = 7.25 ×10-4 (±0.04 × 10-4). In addition, we infer the direction (229.°2 ± 3.°5 R.A., 11.°4 ± 3.°0 decl.) of the interstellar magnetic field from the boundary between large-scale excess and deficit regions from which we estimate the missing corresponding vertical dipole component of the large-scale anisotropy to be δN ∼ -3.97+1.0-2.0 × 10-4

All-sky Measurement of the Anisotropy of Cosmic Rays at 10 TeV and Mapping of the Local Interstellar Magnetic Field

We present the first full-sky analysis of the cosmic ray arrival direction distribution with data collected by the High-Altitude Water Cherenkov and IceCube observatories in the northern and southern hemispheres at the same median primary particle energy of 10 TeV. The combined sky map and angular power spectrum largely eliminate biases that result from partial sky coverage and present a key to probe into the propagation properties of TeV cosmic rays through our local interstellar medium and the interaction between the interstellar and heliospheric magnetic fields. From the map, we determine the horizontal dipole components of the anisotropy δ 0h = 9.16 ×10 -4 and δ 6h = 7.25 ×10 -4 (±0.04 × 10 -4 ). In addition, we infer the direction (229.°2 ± 3.°5 R.A., 11.°4 ± 3.°0 decl.) of the interstellar magnetic field from the boundary between large-scale excess and deficit regions from which we estimate the missing corresponding vertical dipole component of the large-scale anisotropy to be δN ∼ -3.97 +1.0-2.0 × 10 -4

Observation of small-scale anisotropy in the arrival direction distribution of TeV cosmic rays with HAWC

The High-Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) Observatory is sensitive to gamma rays and charged cosmic rays at TeV energies. The detector is still under construction, but data acquisition with the partially deployed detector started in 2013. An analysis of the cosmic-ray arrival direction distribution based on 4.9 × 1010 events recorded between 2013 June and 2014 February shows anisotropy at the 10-4 level on angular scales of about 10°. The HAWC cosmic-ray sky map exhibits three regions of significantly enhanced cosmic-ray flux; two of these regions were first reported by the Milagro experiment. A third region coincides with an excess recently reported by the ARGO-YBJ experiment. An angular power spectrum analysis of the sky shows that all terms up to l = 15 contribute significantly to the excesses

Sensitivity of HAWC to high-mass dark matter annihilations

The High Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) observatory is a wide field-of-view detector sensitive to gamma rays of 100 GeV to a few hundred TeV. Located in central Mexico at 19° North latitude and 4100 m above sea level, HAWC will observe gamma rays and cosmic rays with an array of water Cherenkov detectors. The full HAWC array is scheduled to be operational in Spring 2015. In this paper, we study the HAWC sensitivity to the gamma-ray signatures of high-mass (multi-TeV) dark matter annihilation. The HAWC observatory will be sensitive to diverse searches for dark matter annihilation, including annihilation from extended dark matter sources, the diffuse gamma-ray emission from dark matter annihilation, and gamma-ray emission from nonluminous dark matter subhalos. Here we consider the HAWC sensitivity to a subset of these sources, including dwarf galaxies, the M31 galaxy, the Virgo cluster, and the Galactic center. We simulate the HAWC response to gamma rays from these sources in several well-motivated dark matter annihilation channels. If no gamma-ray excess is observed, we show the limits HAWC can place on the dark matter cross section from these sources. In particular, in the case of dark matter annihilation into gauge bosons, HAWC will be able to detect a narrow range of dark matter masses to cross sections below thermal. HAWC should also be sensitive to nonthermal cross sections for masses up to nearly 1000 TeV. The constraints placed by HAWC on the dark matter cross section from known sources should be competitive with current limits in the mass range where HAWC has similar sensitivity. HAWC can additionally explore higher dark matter masses than are currently constrained

Multimessenger gamma-ray and neutrino coincidence alerts using hawc and icecube subthreshold data

The High Altitude Water Cerenkov (HAWC) and IceCube observatories, through the Astrophysical Multimessenger Observatory Network (AMON) framework, have developed a multimessenger joint search for extragalactic astrophysical sources. This analysis looks for sources that emit both cosmic neutrinos and gamma rays that are produced in photohadronic or hadronic interactions. The AMON system is running continuously, receiving subthreshold data (i.e., data that are not suited on their own to do astrophysical searches) from HAWC and IceCube, and combining them in real time. Here we present the analysis algorithm, as well as results from archival data collected between 2015 June and 2018 August, with a total live time of 3.0 yr. During this period we found two coincident events that have a false-alarm rate (FAR) of <1 coincidence yr-1, consistent with the background expectations. The real-time implementation of the analysis in the AMON system began on 2019 November 20 and issues alerts to the community through the Gamma-ray Coordinates Network with an FAR threshold of <4 coincidences yr-1

Data acquisition architecture and online processing system for the HAWC gamma-ray observatory

The High Altitude Water Cherenkov observatory (HAWC) is an air shower array devised for TeV gamma-ray astronomy. HAWC is located at an altitude of 4100 m a.s.l. in Sierra Negra, Mexico. HAWC consists of 300 Water Cherenkov Detectors, each instrumented with 4 photomultiplier tubes (PMTs). HAWC re-uses the Front-End Boards from the Milagro experiment to receive the PMT signals. These boards are used in combination with Time to Digital Converters (TDCs) to record the time and the amount of light in each PMT hit (light flash). A set of VME TDC modules (128 channels each) is operated in a continuous (dead time free) mode. The TDCs are read out via the VME bus by Single-Board Computers (SBCs), which in turn are connected to a gigabit Ethernet network. The complete system produces approximate to 500 MB/s of raw data. A high-throughput data processing system has been designed and built to enable real-time data analysis. The system relies on off-the-shelf hardware components, an open-source software technology for data transfers (ZeroMQ) and a custom software framework for data analysis (AERIE). Multiple trigger and reconstruction algorithms can be combined and run on blocks of data in a parallel fashion, producing a set of output data streams which can be analyzed in real time with minimal latency (<5 s). This paper provides an overview of the hardware set-up and an in-depth description of the software design, covering both the TDC data acquisition system and the real-time data processing system. The performance of these systems is also discussed. (C) 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved