Gamma-ray lines from SN2014J

On 21 January 2014, SN2014J was discovered in M82 and found to be the closest type Ia supernova (SN Ia) in the last four decades. INTEGRAL observed SN2014J from the end of January until late June for a total exposure time of about 7 Ms. SNe Ia light curves are understood to be powered by the radioactive decay of iron peak elements of which $^{56}$Ni is dominantly synthesized during the thermonuclear disruption of a CO white dwarf (WD). The measurement of $\gamma$-ray lines from the decay chain $^{56}$Ni$\rightarrow$$^{56}$Co$\rightarrow$$^{56}$Fe provides unique information about the explosion in supernovae. Canonical models assume $^{56}$Ni buried deeply in the supernova cloud, absorbing most of the early $\gamma$-rays, and only the consecutive decay of $^{56}$Co should become directly observable through the overlaying material several weeks after the explosion when the supernova envelope dilutes as it expands. Surprisingly, with the spectrometer on INTEGRAL, SPI, we detected $^{56}$Ni $\gamma$-ray lines at 158 and 812 keV at early times with flux levels corresponding to roughly 10% of the total expected amount of $^{56}$Ni, and at relatively small velocities. This implies some mechanism to create a major amout of $^{56}$Ni at the outskirts, and at the same time to break the spherical symmetry of the supernova. One plausible explanation would be a belt accreted from a He companion star, exploding, and triggering the explosion of the white dwarf. The full set of observations of SN2014J show $^{56}$Co $\gamma$-ray lines at 847 and 1238 keV, and we determine for the first time a SN Ia $\gamma$-ray light curve. The irregular appearance of these $\gamma$-ray lines allows deeper insights about the explosion morphology from its temporal evolution and provides additional evidence for an asymmetric explosion, from our high-resolution spectroscopy and comparisons with recent models.Comment: 12 pages, 15 figures, 10th INTEGRAL Workshop: "A Synergistic View of the High Energy Sky" - Integral2014, 15-19 September 2014, Annapolis, MD, US

Adaptive Binning of X-ray data with Weighted Voronoi Tesselations

We present a technique to adaptively bin sparse X-ray data using weighted Voronoi tesselations (WVTs). WVT binning is a generalisation of Cappellari & Copin's (2001) Voronoi binning algorithm, developed for integral field spectroscopy. WVT binning is applicable to many types of data and creates unbiased binning structures with compact bins that do not lead the eye. We apply the algorithm to simulated data, as well as several X-ray data sets, to create adaptively binned intensity images, hardness ratio maps and temperature maps with constant signal-to-noise ratio per bin. We also illustrate the separation of diffuse gas emission from contributions of unresolved point sources in elliptical galaxies. We compare the performance of WVT binning with other adaptive binning and adaptive smoothing techniques. We find that the CIAO tool csmooth creates serious artefacts and advise against its use to interpret diffuse X-ray emission.Comment: 14 pages; submitted to MNRAS; code freely available at http://www.phy.ohiou.edu/~diehl/WVT/index.html with user manual, examples and high-resolution version of this pape

The Hot Interstellar Medium in Normal Elliptical Galaxies III: The Thermal Structure of the Gas

This is the third paper in a series analyzing X-ray emission from the hot interstellar medium in a sample of 54 normal elliptical galaxies observed by Chandra, focusing on 36 galaxies with sufficient signal to compute radial temperature profiles. We distinguish four qualitatively different types of profile: positive gradient (outwardly rising), negative gradients (falling), quasi-isothermal (flat) and hybrid (falling at small radii, then rising). We measure the mean logarithmic temperature gradients in two radial regions: from 0--2 $J$-band effective radii $R_J$ (excluding the central point source), and from 2--$4R_J$. We find the outer gradient to be uncorrelated with intrinsic host galaxy properties, but strongly influenced by the environment: galaxies in low-density environments tend to show negative outer gradients, while those in high-density environments show positive outer gradients, suggesting influence of circumgalactic hot gas. The inner temperature gradient is unaffected by the environment but strongly correlated with intrinsic host galaxy characteristics: negative inner gradients are more common for smaller, optically faint, low radio-luminosity galaxies, whereas positive gradients are found in bright galaxies with stronger radio sources. There is no evidence for bimodality in the distribution of inner or outer gradients. We propose three scenarios to explain the inner temperature gradients: (1) Weak AGN heat the ISM locally, higher-luminosity AGN heat the system globally through jets inflating cavities at larger radii; (2) The onset of negative inner gradients indicates a declining importance of AGN heating relative to other sources, such as compressional heating or supernovae; (3) The variety of temperature profiles are snapshots of different stages of a time-dependent flow.Comment: 18 pages, emulateapj, 55 figures (36 online-only figures included in astro-ph version), submitted to Ap

Achieving sub-electron readout noise in Skipper CCDs

The readout noise for Charge-Coupled Devices (CCDs) has been the main limitation when using these detectors for measuring small amplitude signals. A readout system for a new scientific, low noise CCD is presented in this paper. The Skipper CCD architecture, and its advantages for low noise applications are discussed. A technique for obtaining sub-electron readout noise levels is presented, and its noise and signal characteristics are derived. We demonstrate a very low readout noise of $0.2e^{-}$ RMS. Also, we show the results using the detector in a low-energy X-ray detection experiment.Comment: 16 pages, 11 figure

Generalized Parton Distributions and Transversity in Nucleons and Nuclei

We present an exploratory study using generalized parton distributions of several observables related to transverse degrees of freedom in hadronic structure -- the nucleon transverse momentum, the transverse radius, or impact parameter, and the momentum transfer, $t$, dependence of the longitudinal variable $x$ -- in both nucleons and nuclei.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, Talk presented at "Baryons 04", October 25th-30th, 2004, Palaiseau, Franc

Comparing simulated 26^{26}Al maps to gamma-ray measurements

© ESO 2019.Context. The diffuse gamma-ray emission of $^{26}{\rm Al}$ at 1.8 MeV reflects ongoing nucleosynthesis in the Milky Way, and traces massive-star feedback in the interstellar medium due to its 1 Myr radioactive lifetime. Interstellar-medium morphology and dynamics are investigated in astrophysics through 3D hydrodynamic simulations in fine detail, as only few suitable astronomical probes are available. Aims. We compare a galactic-scale hydrodynamic simulation of the Galaxy's interstellar medium, including feedback and nucleosynthesis, with gamma-ray data on $^{26}{\rm Al}$ emission in the Milky Way extracting constraints that are only weakly dependent on the particular realisation of the simulation or Galaxy structure. Methods. Due to constraints and biases in both the simulations and the gamma-ray observations, such comparisons are not straightforward. For a direct comparison, we perform maximum likelihood fits of simulated sky maps as well as observation-based maximum entropy maps to measurements with INTEGRAL/SPI. To study general morphological properties, we compare the scale heights of $^{26}{\rm Al}$ emission produced by the simulation to INTEGRAL/SPI measurements.} Results. The direct comparison shows that the simulation describes the observed inner Galaxy well, but differs significantly from the observed full-sky emission morphology. Comparing the scale height distribution, we see similarities for small scale height features and a mismatch at larger scale heights. We attribute this to the prominent foreground emission sites that are not captured by the simulation.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

Initial Calibration of CCD Images for the Dark Energy Survey

Astronomical images taken from a telescope must go through “astronomical image processing” to remove instrumental signatures. The Dark Energy Survey (DES), which will start operations in 2012, will use a 570 megapixel Dark Energy Camera (DECam) to study the mystery of the acceleration of the expanding universe. The DECam will use DES filters and 74 of a new type of astronomical Charge Coupled Device (CCD) that is particularly efficient in detecting near-infrared light. Together, the DES filters and DECam CCDs are optimized for the measurement of redshifts of distant galaxies. In preparation for the DES, data were collected from the 1 meter telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO) in Chile, using a DES filter set and a DECam CCD as a test set for the initial analysis of data. Here, these CTIO-1m data were used to determine the relationship between the apparent measured brightness of stars of known brightness (standard stars) and the amount of atmosphere the telescope looks through (angular distance from the zenith or “airmass”). This relationship was tested against the results from another telescope using similar filters. Finally, this relationship was used to calibrate the brightness of stars of unknown brightness that were also observed in the CTIO 1m data set