Studies of cosmic ray electrons with the Fermi-LAT

The Fermi Large Area Telescope measures the cosmic-ray electron spectrum from 7GeV up to 1TeV, covering a broad range of approximately 2.5 decades with unprecedented accuracy. This result is based on an analysis of about 8 million electron candidates detected in the first 12 months of operations of the satellite. It extends our previously published measurement down to 7GeV, and confirms a spectrum harder than expected and with no prominent spectral features. In this paper we describe key points of the analysis and of its validations, as well as a cross-check measurement of the spectrum via a subset of events selected for the best energy resolution. Possible interpretations of the result and prospects for future Fermi measurements are briefly discussed at the end

PulsarSpectrum: simulating gamma-ray pulsars for the GLAST mission

We present here an overview of PulsarSpectrum, a program that simulates the gamma ray emission from pulsars. This simulator reproduces not only the basic features of the observed gamma ray pulsars, but it can also simulate more detailed effects related to pulsar timing. It is a very useful tool to understand the GLAST capabilities in the pulsar science.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, contribution for "Third Workshop on Science with the New Generation of High Energy Gamma-ray Experiments", May 2005, Cividale del Friuli (UD), Ital

Quality of reporting on the vegetative state in Italian newspapers. The case of Eluana Englaro.

Background: Media coverage of the vegetative state (VS) includes refutations of the VS diagnosis and describes behaviors inconsistent with VS. We used a quality score to assess the reporting in articles describing the medical characteristics of VS in Italian newspapers. Methodology/Principal Findings: Our search covered a 7-month period from July 1, 2008, to February 28, 2009, using the online searchable databases of four major Italian newspapers: Corriere della Sera, La Repubblica, La Stampa, and Avvenire. Medical reporting was judged as complete if three core VS characteristics were described: patient unawareness of self and the environment, preserved wakefulness (eyes open), and spontaneous respiration (artificial ventilator not needed). We retrieved 2,099 articles, and 967 were dedicated to VS. Of these, 853 (88.2%) were non-medical and mainly focused on describing the political, legal, and ethical aspects of VS. Of the 114 (11.8%) medical articles, 53 (5.5%) discussed other medical problems such as death by dehydration, artificial nutrition, neuroimaging, brain death, or uterine hemorrhage, and 61 (6.3%) described VS. Of these 61, only 18 (1.9%) reported all three CORE characteristics and were judged complete. We found no differences among the four investigated newspapers (Fisher’s exact = 0.798), and incomplete articles were equally distributed between journalistic pieces and expert opinions (x2 = 1.8854, P = 0.170). Incorrect descriptions of VS were significantly more common among incomplete articles (13 of 43 vs. 1 of 18; Fisher’s exact P = 0.047). Conclusions/Significance: Core VS characteristics are rarely reported in Italian newspaper articles, which can alter adequate comprehension of new developments and (mis)inform political, legal, and ethical decisions

New results from Fermi

With more than one billion photons from the whole sky, accumulated in the 100MeV–100GeV band since 2008, the Fermi Large Area Telescope offers the most precious vault for high-energy gamma-ray astrophysics. This unique database was used to study thousands of gamma-ray sources of very different nature, from our own Galaxy to distant and active galactic nuclei. Leveraging the excellent stability of the Large Area Telescope detectors, which operate with no performance degradation since launch, and on improved event analyses that extend the LAT sensitivity below 100MeV and up to the TeV regime with improved resolution, the Fermi Observatory can operate for many more years to respond to fundamental questions of modern particle astrophysics