2,368 research outputs found
ASTRI for the Cherenkov Telescope Array
The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) will be the largest ground-based
observatory operating in the very-high-energy gamma-ray (20 GeV - 300 TeV)
range. It will be based on more than one hundred telescopes, located at two
sites (northern and southern hemispheres). The energy coverage, in the southern
CTA array, will extend up to hundreds of TeV thanks to 70 small size telescopes
(SST), with primary mirrors of about 4 meters in diameter and large field of
view of the order of 9 degrees. It is proposed that one of the first sets of
precursors for the CTA SSTs array will be represented by nine ASTRI telescopes.
Their prototype, named ASTRI SST-2M, is installed in Italy. It is currently
completing the overall commissioning before entering the science verification
phase that will performed observing bright TeV sources as Crab Nebula, Mrk421
and Mrk 501 cross-checking the prototype performance with the Monte Carlo
predictions. ASTRI telescopes are characterized by a dual-mirror optical design
based on the Schwarzschild- Couder (SC) configuration. The focal-plane camera
is curved in order to fit the ideal prescription for the SC design and the
sensors are small size silicon photomultipliers read-out by a fast front-end
electronics. The telescope prototype installed in Italy, has been developed by
the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics, INAF, following an end-to-end
approach that comprises all aspects from the design, construction and
implementation of the entire hardware and software system to the final
scientific products. All parts of the system have been designed to comply with
the CTA requirements. A collaborative effort, addressed to the implementation
of the first ASTRI telescopes for the CTA southern site, is now on-going led by
INAF with the Universidade de Sao Paulo (Brazil), the North-West University
(South Africa) and the Italian National Institute for Nuclear Physics.Comment: All CTA contributions at arXiv:1709.0348
Using radio emission to detect isolated and quiescent accreting black holes
We discuss the implications of new relations between black holes' masses,
X-ray luminosities and radio luminosities, as well as the properties of the
next generation of radio telescopes, for the goal of finding isolated accreting
black holes. Because accreting black holes have radio-to-X-ray flux ratios that
increase with decreasing luminosity in Eddington units, and because deep
surveys over large fields of view should be possible with planned
instrumentation such as LOFAR, radio surveys should be significantly more
efficient than X-ray surveys for finding these objects.Comment: 5 pages, 1 table, accepted to MNRAS Letter
An observational method for fast stochastic X-ray polarimetry-timing
The upcoming launch of the first space based X-ray polarimeter in
years will provide powerful new diagnostic information to study accreting
compact objects. In particular, analysis of rapid variability of the
polarisation degree and angle will provide the opportunity to probe the
relativistic motions of material in the strong gravitational fields close to
the compact objects, and enable new methods to measure black hole and neutron
star parameters. However, polarisation properties are measured in a statistical
sense, and a statistically significant polarisation detection requires a fairly
long exposure, even for the brightest objects. Therefore, the sub-minute
timescales of interest are not accessible using a direct time-resolved analysis
of polarisation degree and angle. Phase-folding can be used for coherent
pulsations, but not for stochastic variability such as quasi-periodic
oscillations. Here, we introduce a Fourier method that enables statistically
robust detection of stochastic polarisation variability for arbitrarily short
variability timescales. Our method is analogous to commonly used
spectral-timing techniques. We find that it should be possible in the near
future to detect the quasi-periodic swings in polarisation angle predicted by
Lense-Thirring precession of the inner accretion flow. This is contingent on
the mean polarisation degree of the source being greater than ,
which is consistent with the best current constraints on Cygnus X-1 from the
late 1970s.Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRA
The closest black holes
Starting from the assumption that there is a large population (> 10^8) of
isolated, stellar-mass black holes (IBH) distributed throughout our galaxy, we
consider the detectable signatures of accretion from the interstellar medium
(ISM) that may be associated with such a population. We simulate the nearby
(radius 250 pc) part of this population, corresponding to the closest ~35 000
black holes, using current best estimates of the mass distribution of stellar
mass black holes combined with two models for the velocity distribution of
stellar-mass IBH which bracket likely possibilities. We distribute this
population of objects appropriately within the different phases of the ISM and
calculate the Bondi-Hoyle accretion rate, modified by a further dimensionless
efficiency parameter \lambda. Assuming a simple prescription for radiatively
inefficient accretion at low Eddington ratios, we calculate the X-ray
luminosity of these objects, and similarly estimate the radio luminosity from
relations found empirically for black holes accreting at low rates. The latter
assumption depends crucially on whether or not the IBH accrete from the ISM in
a manner which is axisymmetric enough to produce jets. Comparing the predicted
X-ray fluxes with limits from hard X-ray surveys, we conclude that either the
Bondi-Hoyle efficiency parameter \lambda, is rather small (< 0.01), the
velocities of the IBH are rather high, or some combination of both. The
predicted radio flux densities correspond to a population of objects which,
while below current survey limits, should be detectable with the Square
Kilometre Array (SKA). Converting the simulated space velocities into proper
motions, we further demonstrate that such IBH could be identified as faint high
proper motion radio sources in SKA surveys.Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRA
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