Search results for " galactic"
showing 10 items of 140 documents
Gamma rays from cosmic-ray proton scattering in AGN jets: the intra-cluster gas vastly outshines dark matter
2013
Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) host powerful jets containing high-energy electrons and protons. The astrophysical environment where AGNs and their jets are found is characterized by large concentrations of both dark matter (DM) and intra-cluster medium (ICM) gas. As the high-energy jet particles transverse the DM and the ICM, elastic and inelastic scattering processes generically lead to the production of final-state photons. As first envisioned by Bloom and Wells (1998), and as more recently pointed out by us and others, the scattering of electrons off of DM could lead to a potentially detectable gamma-ray signal, with the parton-level contribution from protons offering dimmer perspectives. …
Radio observations of active galactic nuclei with mm-VLBI
2017
Over the past few decades, our knowledge of jets produced by active galactic nuclei (AGN) has greatly progressed thanks to the development of very-long-baseline interferometry (VLBI). Nevertheless, the crucial mechanisms involved in the formation of the plasma flow, as well as those driving its exceptional radiative output up to TeV energies, remain to be clarified. Most likely, these physical processes take place at short separations from the supermassive black hole, on scales which are inaccessible to VLBI observations at centimeter wavelengths. Due to their high synchrotron opacity, the dense and highly magnetized regions in the vicinity of the central engine can only be penetrated when …
Numerical simulations of dynamics and emission from relativistic astrophysical jets
2013
Broadband emission from relativistic outflows (jets) of active galactic nuclei (AGN) and gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) contains valuable information about the nature of the jet itself, and about the central engine which launches it. Using special relativistic hydrodynamics and magnetohydronamics simulations we study the dynamics of the jet and its interaction with the surrounding medium. The observational signature of the simulated jets is computed using a radiative transfer code developed specifically for the purpose of computing multi-wavelength, time-dependent, non-thermal emission from astrophysical plasmas. We present results of a series of long-term projects devoted to understanding the dyn…
Computational general relativistic force-free electrodynamics
2020
General relativistic force-free electrodynamics is one possible plasma-limit employed to analyze energetic outflows in which strong magnetic fields are dominant over all inertial phenomena. The amazing images of black hole shadows from the galactic center and the M87 galaxy provide a first direct glimpse into the physics of accretion flows in the most extreme environments of the universe. The efficient extraction of energy in the form of collimated outflows or jets from a rotating BH is directly linked to the topology of the surrounding magnetic field. We aim at providing a tool to numerically model the dynamics of such fields in magnetospheres around compact objects, such as black holes an…
LOFAR measures the hotspot advance speed of the high-redshift blazar S5 0836+710
2019
Our goal is to study the termination of an AGN jet in the young universe and to deduce physical parameters of the jet and the intergalactic medium. We use LOFAR to image the long-wavelength radio emission of the high-redshift blazar S5 0836+710 on arcsecond scales between 120 MHz and 160 MHz. The LOFAR image shows a compact unresolved core and a resolved emission region about 1.5 arcsec to the southwest of the radio core. This structure is in general agreement with previous higher-frequency radio observations with MERLIN and the VLA. The southern component shows a moderately steep spectrum with a spectral index of about $\gtrsim -1$ while the spectral index of the core is flat to slightly i…
Coincidence of a high-fluence blazar outburst with a PeV-energy neutrino event
2016
The discovery of extraterrestrial very-high-energy neutrinos by the IceCube collaboration has launched a quest for the identification of their astrophysical sources. Gamma-ray blazars have been predicted to yield a cumulative neutrino signal exceeding the atmospheric background above energies of 100 TeV, assuming that both the neutrinos and the gamma-ray photons are produced by accelerated protons in relativistic jets. Since the background spectrum falls steeply with increasing energy, the individual events with the clearest signature of being of an extraterrestrial origin are those at PeV energies. Inside the large positional-uncertainty fields of the first two PeV neutrinos detected by Ic…
A new sample of large angular size radio galaxies I. The radio data
2001
We present a new sample of 84 large angular size radio galaxies selected from the NRAO VLA Sky Survey. Radio sources with declination above +60 degrees, total flux density greater than 100 mJy at 1.4 GHz and angular size larger than 4 arcmin have been selected and observed with the VLA at 1.4 and 4.9 GHz. The radio observations attempt to confirm the large angular size sources and to isolate the core emission for optical identification. In this paper, the first of a series of three, we present radio maps of 79 sources from the sample and discuss the effects of the selection criteria in the final sample. 37 radio galaxies belong to the class of giants, of which 22 are reported in this paper …
The broad-line radio galaxy J2114+820
1998
In the frame of the study of a new sample of large angular size radio galaxies selected from the NRAO VLA Sky Survey, we have made radio observations of J2114+820, a low power radio galaxy with an angular size of 6'. Its radio structure basically consists of a prominent core, a jet directed in north-west direction and two extended S-shaped lobes. We have also observed the optical counterpart of J2114+820, a bright elliptical galaxy with a strong unresolved central component. The optical spectrum shows broad emission lines. This fact, together with its low radio power and FR-I type morphology, renders J2114+820 a non-trivial object from the point of view of the current unification schemes of…
THE RELATION BETWEEN AGN GAMMA-RAY EMISSION AND PARSEC-SCALE RADIO JETS
2009
We have compared the radio emission from a sample of parsec-scale AGN jets as measured by the VLBA at 15 GHz, with their associated gamma-ray properties that are reported in the Fermi LAT 3-month bright source list. We find in our radio-selected sample that the gamma-ray photon flux correlates well with the quasi-simultaneously measured compact radio flux density. The LAT-detected jets in our radio-selected complete sample generally have higher compact radio flux densities, and their parsec-scale cores are brighter (i.e., have higher brightness temperature) than the jets in the LAT non-detected objects. This suggests that the jets of bright gamma-ray AGN have preferentially higher Doppler-b…
The DArk Matter Particle Explorer mission
2017
The DArk Matter Particle Explorer (DAMPE), one of the four scientific space science missions within the framework of the Strategic Pioneer Program on Space Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, is a general purpose high energy cosmic-ray and gamma-ray observatory, which was successfully launched on December 17th, 2015 from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center. The DAMPE scientific objectives include the study of galactic cosmic rays up to $\sim 10$ TeV and hundreds of TeV for electrons/gammas and nuclei respectively, and the search for dark matter signatures in their spectra. In this paper we illustrate the layout of the DAMPE instrument, and discuss the results of beam tests and calib…