115 research outputs found
Modeling of the multiwavelength emission of M87 with H.E.S.S. observations
M87 is the first extragalactic source detected in the TeV range that is not a
blazar. The large scale jet of M87 is not aligned with the line of sight.
Modification of standard emission models of TeV blazars appears necessary to
account for the gamma-ray observations made by H.E.S.S. despite this
misalignment.
We present a new multi-blob synchrotron self-Compton model that deals
explicitly with large viewing angles and moderate values of the Lorentz factor
inferred from MHD simulations of jet formation.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures; to appear in "SF2A 2007 proceedings", eds. J.
Bouvier, A. Chalabaev and C. Charbonne
Multiwavelength modeling of TeV AGN observed by HESS
The High Energy Stereoscopic System (H.E.S.S.) experiment, a ground-based
gamma-ray Cherenkov telescope array located in Namibia, has now detected many
extragalactic objects, which redshifts range from z=0.00183 up to z=0.2,
possibly more. With the increasing performances of Cherenkov telescopes, it now
becomes possible to probe these objects at small timescales in gamma-ray,
allowing the study of regions thought to be very close to the central
supermassive black holes. Furthermore, H.E.S.S. has confirmed a gamma-ray
emission from M87, which is thus the first extragalactic source seen at the TeV
range that is not a blazar.
Among blazars, TeV BL Lacs are the most challenging objects to test the jet
emission models and to shed light on particle acceleration mechanisms. The
study of blazars with H.E.S.S. also revealed various temporal behaviors among
them. Some objects presents a highly variable X-ray flux with small variation
of the gamma-ray, while others show the inverse behavior. The interpretation of
such differences is puzzling.
Observations at very high energies also bring indirect measurements of the
infrared extragalactic background light (EBL). The interpretation of gamma-ray
emission of radiogalaxies such as M87 in terms of misaligned blazars and the
understanding of the properties of the EBL represent new challenges brought by
H.E.S.S. observations of extragalactic sources.Comment: 3 pages, 5 figures; to appear in "The Nuclear Region, Host Galaxy and
Environment of Active Galaxies", eds. E. Benitez, I. Cruz-Gonzalez and Y.
Krongold, RevMexAA (Serie de Conferencias); added reference
Predictions of Very High Energy gamma-ray fluxes for three Active Galactic Nuclei
M87 is the first extragalactic source detected at the TeV that is not a
blazar. To account for the recent observations of M87 made by the High Energy
Stereoscopic System (H.E.S.S.) telescope array, we developed a new multi-blob
synchrotron self-Compton model.
In the framework of this model, we present here the predictions for the very
high energy emission of three active galactic nuclei with extended optical or
X-ray jets which could be misaligned blazars, namely Cen A, PKS 0521-36 and 3C
273.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures; to appear in "SF2A 2007 proceedings", eds. J.
Bouvier, A. Chalabaev and C. Charbonne
Utilisation de la grille EGI pour l'astrophysique de très hautes énergies avec H.E.S.S.
Utilisation de la grille EGI pour l'astrophysique de très hautes énergies avec H.E.S.S
AGN observations with a less than 100 GeV threshold using H.E.S.S. II
The recent addition of the 28 m Cherenkov telescope (CT5) to the H.E.S.S.
array extended the experiment's sensitivity towards low energies. The lowest
energy threshold is obtained using monoscopic observations with CT5, providing
access to gamma-ray energies below 100 GeV. This is particularly beneficial for
studies of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) with soft spectra and located at
redshifts >= 0.5. Stereoscopic measurements with the full array (CT1-5) provide
a better background rejection than CT5 Mono, at a cost of a higher threshold.
We report on the analysis employing the CT5 data for AGN observations with a <
100 GeV threshold. In particular, the spectra of PKS 2155-304 and PG 1553+113
are presented.Comment: In Proceedings of the 34th International Cosmic Ray Conference
(ICRC2015), The Hague, The Netherland
High energy blazars spectroscopy with X-Shooter on the VLT
We present results of observations in the UV to near-IR range for eight
blazars, three of which have been recently discovered at Very High Energies
(VHE) and five appearing as interesting candidates for VHE {\gamma}-ray
detection. We focus in this paper on the search for their redshifts, which are
unknown or considered as uncertain.Comment: 4 pages, 8 figures, to appear in the proceedings of the 5th
International Symposium on High-Energy Gamma-Ray Astronomy (Gamma2012), July
9-13, 2012, Heidelberg, German
Spectroscopy of High Energy BL Lac Objects with X-shooter on the VLT
Context. The study of BL Lac objects (BLL) detected in gamma-rays gives
insights on the acceleration mechanisms in play in such systems and is also a
valuable tool to constrain the density of the extragalactic background light.
As their spectra are dominated by the non-thermal emission of the jet and the
spectral features are weak and narrow in the optical domain, measuring their
redshift is challenging. However such a measure is fundamental as it allows a
firm determination of the distance and luminosity of the source, and therefore
a consistent model of its emission. Aims. Measurement of the redshift of BLL
detected in gamma-rays and determination of global properties of their host
galaxies. Methods. We observed a sample of eight BLL (KUV 00311-1938, PKS
0447-439, PKS 0301-243, BZB J0238-3116, BZB J0543-5532, BZB J0505+0415, BZB
J0816-1311 and RBS 334) with the X-shooter spectrograph installed at the ESO
Very Large Telescope in order to take advantage of its unprecedented wavelength
coverage and of its resolution about 5 times higher than generally used in such
studies. We extracted UVB to NIR spectra that we then corrected for telluric
absorption and calibrated in flux. We systematically searched for spectral
features. When possible, we determined the contribution of the host galaxy to
the overall emission. Results. Of the eight BLL, we measured the redshift of
five of them and determined lower limits for two through the detection of
intervening systems. All seven of these objects have redshifts greater than
0.2. In two cases, we refuted redshift values reported in other publications.
Through careful modelling, we determined the magnitude of the host galaxies. In
two cases, the detection of emission lines allowed to provide hints on the
overall properties of the gas in the host galaxies.Comment: 19 pages, 10 figures, 7 tables, in press on A&
, the scientific software for the Cherenkov Telescope Array -- NectarCAM
The NectarCAM is a camera that will be mounted on the Medium-Sized Telescopes
of the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) observatory. Along with the hardware
integration of the camera, the scientific software, , is
being developed. The software is responsible for transforming the raw data from
the camera into analysis-ready calibrated data. In this contribution, we
present the structure of the software, which consists of two modules: the
calibration pipeline and the data quality check pipeline. The calibration
pipeline reduces the data, performs flat fielding, and determines the gain for
the analysis. The data quality monitoring pipeline is used to select the data
that meets the necessary standards for analysis. Additionally, we discuss the
format of the downstream data and the integration of the
modules in the general software framework of CTA. We also present the necessary
tests for validating each part of the code. We conclude by mentioning the
prospects for the future of the software.Comment: Presented at the 38th International Cosmic Ray Conference (ICRC
2023), 2023 (arXiv:submit/5126940
Gammapy: A Python package for gamma-ray astronomy
In this article, we present Gammapy, an open-source Python package for the
analysis of astronomical -ray data, and illustrate the functionalities
of its first long-term-support release, version 1.0. Built on the modern Python
scientific ecosystem, Gammapy provides a uniform platform for reducing and
modeling data from different -ray instruments for many analysis
scenarios. Gammapy complies with several well-established data conventions in
high-energy astrophysics, providing serialized data products that are
interoperable with other software packages. Starting from event lists and
instrument response functions, Gammapy provides functionalities to reduce these
data by binning them in energy and sky coordinates. Several techniques for
background estimation are implemented in the package to handle the residual
hadronic background affecting -ray instruments. After the data are
binned, the flux and morphology of one or more -ray sources can be
estimated using Poisson maximum likelihood fitting and assuming a variety of
spectral, temporal, and spatial models. Estimation of flux points, likelihood
profiles, and light curves is also supported. After describing the structure of
the package, we show, using publicly available -ray data, the
capabilities of Gammapy in multiple traditional and novel -ray analysis
scenarios, such as spectral and spectro-morphological modeling and estimations
of a spectral energy distribution and a light curve. Its flexibility and power
are displayed in a final multi-instrument example, where datasets from
different instruments, at different stages of data reduction, are
simultaneously fitted with an astrophysical flux model.Comment: 26 pages, 16 figure
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