Search results for "010303 astronomy & astrophysics"
showing 10 items of 1094 documents
A Fermi Gamma-Ray Burst Monitor Search for Electromagnetic Signals Coincident with Gravitational-wave Candidates in Advanced LIGO's First Observing R…
2019
We present a search for prompt gamma-ray counterparts to compact binary coalescence gravitational wave (GW) candidates from Advanced LIGO's first observing run (O1). As demonstrated by the multimessenger observations of GW170817/GRB 170817A, electromagnetic and GW observations provide complementary information about the astrophysical source and, in the case of weaker candidates, may strengthen the case for an astrophysical origin. Here we investigate low-significance GW candidates from the O1 compact-binary coalescence searches using the Fermi Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (GBM), leveraging its all-sky and broad energy coverage. Candidates are ranked and compared to background to measure signific…
A Standard Siren Measurement of the Hubble Constant from GW170817 without the Electromagnetic Counterpart
2019
We perform a statistical standard siren analysis of GW170817. Our analysis does not utilize knowledge of NGC 4993 as the unique host galaxy of the optical counterpart to GW170817. Instead, we consider each galaxy within the GW170817 localization region as a potential host; combining the redshift from each galaxy with the distance estimate from GW170817 provides an estimate of the Hubble constant, $H_0$. We then combine the $H_0$ values from all the galaxies to provide a final measurement of $H_0$. We explore the dependence of our results on the thresholds by which galaxies are included in our sample, as well as the impact of weighting the galaxies by stellar mass and star-formation rate. Co…
Gravitational Waves and Gamma-Rays from a Binary Neutron Star Merger: GW170817 and GRB 170817A
2017
On 2017 August 17, the gravitational-wave event GW170817 was observed by the Advanced LIGO and Virgo detectors, and the gamma-ray burst (GRB) GRB 170817A was observed independently by the Fermi Gamma-ray Burst Monitor, and the Anticoincidence Shield for the Spectrometer for the International Gamma-Ray Astrophysics Laboratory. The probability of the near-simultaneous temporal and spatial observation of GRB 170817A and GW170817 occurring by chance is $5.0\times 10^{-8}$. We therefore confirm binary neutron star mergers as a progenitor of short GRBs. The association of GW170817 and GRB 170817A provides new insight into fundamental physics and the origin of short gamma-ray bursts. We use the ob…
GW190814: Spin and equation of state of a neutron star companion
2020
The recent discovery by LIGO/Virgo of a merging binary having a $\sim 23 M_\odot$ black hole and a $\sim 2.6 M_\odot$ compact companion has triggered a debate regarding the nature of the secondary, which falls into the so-called mass gap. Here we explore some consequences of the assumption that the secondary was a neutron star (NS). We show with concrete examples of heretofore viable equations of state (EOSs) that rapid uniform rotation may neither be necessary for some EOSs nor sufficient for others to explain the presence of a NS. Absolute upper limits for the maximum mass of a spherical NS derived from GW170817 already suggest that this unknown compact companion might be a slowly or even…
MOJAVE. XIII. PARSEC-SCALE AGN JET KINEMATICS ANALYSIS BASED ON 19 YEARS OF VLBA OBSERVATIONS AT 15 GHz
2016
We present 1625 new 15 GHz (2 cm) VLBA images of 295 jets associated with active galactic nuclei (AGNs) from the MOJAVE and 2 cm VLBA surveys, spanning observations between 1994 Aug 31 and 2013 Aug 20. For 274 AGNs with at least 5 VLBA epochs, we have analyzed the kinematics of 961 individual bright features in their parsec-scale jets. A total of 122 of these jets have not been previously analyzed by the MOJAVE program. In the case of 451 jet features that had at least 10 epochs, we also examined their kinematics for possible accelerations. At least half of the well-sampled features have non-radial and/or accelerating trajectories, indicating that non-ballistic motion is common in AGN jets.…
Minimally implicit Runge-Kutta methods for Resistive Relativistic MHD
2016
The Relativistic Resistive Magnetohydrodynamic (RRMHD) equations are a hyperbolic system of partial differential equations used to describe the dynamics of relativistic magnetized fluids with a finite conductivity. Close to the ideal magnetohydrodynamic regime, the source term proportional to the conductivity becomes potentially stiff and cannot be handled with standard explicit time integration methods. We propose a new class of methods to deal with the stiffness fo the system, which we name Minimally Implicit Runge-Kutta methods. These methods avoid the development of numerical instabilities without increasing the computational costs in comparison with explicit methods, need no iterative …
Formation of X-ray emitting stationary shocks in magnetized protostellar jets
2016
X-ray observations of protostellar jets show evidence of strong shocks heating the plasma up to temperatures of a few million degrees. In some cases, the shocked features appear to be stationary. They are interpreted as shock diamonds. We aim at investigating the physics that guides the formation of X-ray emitting stationary shocks in protostellar jets, the role of the magnetic field in determining the location, stability, and detectability in X-rays of these shocks, and the physical properties of the shocked plasma. We performed a set of 2.5-dimensional magnetohydrodynamic numerical simulations modelling supersonic jets ramming into a magnetized medium and explored different configurations…
Testing standard and nonstandard neutrino physics with cosmological data
2012
Cosmological constraints on the sum of neutrino masses and on the effective number of neutrino species in standard and nonstandard scenarios are computed using the most recent available cosmological data. Our cosmological data sets include the measurement of the baryonic acoustic oscillation (BAO) feature in the data release 9 CMASS sample of the baryon oscillation spectroscopic survey. We study in detail the different degeneracies among the parameters, as well as the impact of the different data sets used in the analyses. When considering bounds on the sum of the three active neutrino masses, the information in the BAO signal from galaxy clustering measurements is approximately equally pow…
Detection potential of the KM3NeT detector for high-energy neutrinos from the Fermi bubbles
2013
A recent analysis of the Fermi Large Area Telescope data provided evidence for a high-intensity emission of high-energy gamma rays with a E-2 spectrum from two large areas, spanning 50 above and below the Galactic centre (the "Fermi bubbles"). A hadronic mechanism was proposed for this gamma-ray emission making the Fermi bubbles promising source candidates of high-energy neutrino emission. In this work Monte Carlo simulations regarding the detectability of high-energy neutrinos from the Fermi bubbles with the future multi-km(3) neutrino telescope KM3NeT in the Mediterranean Sea are presented. Under the hypothesis that the gamma-ray emission is completely due to hadronic processes, the resul…
Search for patterns by combining cosmic-ray energy and arrival directions at the Pierre Auger Observatory
2015
Energy-dependent patterns in the arrival directions of cosmic rays are searched for using data of the Pierre Auger Observatory. We investigate local regions around the highest-energy cosmic rays with E ≥ 6×1019 eV by analyzing cosmic rays with energies above E ≥ 5×1018 eV arriving within an angular separation of approximately 15∘. We characterize the energy distributions inside these regions by two independent methods, one searching for angular dependence of energy-energy correlations and one searching for collimation of energy along the local system of principal axes of the energy distribution. No significant patterns are found with this analysis. The comparison of these measurements with …