ORCID Profile
0000-0003-1853-4900
Current Organisations
INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova
,
University of Bologna
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Publisher: American Astronomical Society
Date: 05-10-2018
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 20-11-2019
DOI: 10.1038/S41586-019-1754-6
Abstract: Long-duration γ-ray bursts (GRBs) originate from ultra-relativistic jets launched from the collapsing cores of dying massive stars. They are characterized by an initial phase of bright and highly variable radiation in the kiloelectronvolt-to-megaelectronvolt band, which is probably produced within the jet and lasts from milliseconds to minutes, known as the prompt emission
Publisher: WORLD SCIENTIFIC
Date: 26-02-2018
DOI: 10.1142/10986
Publisher: IOP Publishing
Date: 29-06-2011
Publisher: EDP Sciences
Date: 27-04-2011
Publisher: American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
Date: 11-07-2018
Abstract: Previous detections of in idual astrophysical sources of neutrinos are limited to the Sun and the supernova 1987A, whereas the origins of the diffuse flux of high-energy cosmic neutrinos remain unidentified. On 22 September 2017, we detected a high-energy neutrino, IceCube-170922A, with an energy of ~290 tera-electron volts. Its arrival direction was consistent with the location of a known γ-ray blazar, TXS 0506+056, observed to be in a flaring state. An extensive multiwavelength c aign followed, ranging from radio frequencies to γ-rays. These observations characterize the variability and energetics of the blazar and include the detection of TXS 0506+056 in very-high-energy γ-rays. This observation of a neutrino in spatial coincidence with a γ-ray-emitting blazar during an active phase suggests that blazars may be a source of high-energy neutrinos.
Publisher: EDP Sciences
Date: 04-2021
DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361/202038949
Abstract: The flat spectrum radio quasar (FSRQ) PKS 1510−089 is known for its complex multiwavelength behaviour and it is one of only a few FSRQs detected in very-high-energy (VHE, E 100 GeV) γ rays. The VHE γ -ray observations with H.E.S.S. and MAGIC in late May and early June 2016 resulted in the detection of an unprecedented flare, which revealed, for the first time, VHE γ -ray intranight variability for this source. While a common variability timescale of 1.5 h has been found, there is a significant deviation near the end of the flare, with a timescale of ∼20 min marking the cessation of the event. The peak flux is nearly two orders of magnitude above the low-level emission. For the first time, a curvature was detected in the VHE γ -ray spectrum of PKS 1510–089, which can be fully explained by the absorption on the part of the extragalactic background light. Optical R -band observations with ATOM revealed a counterpart of the γ -ray flare, even though the detailed flux evolution differs from the VHE γ -ray light curve. Interestingly, a steep flux decrease was observed at the same time as the cessation of the VHE γ -ray flare. In the high-energy (HE, E 100 MeV) γ -ray band, only a moderate flux increase was observed with Fermi -LAT, while the HE γ -ray spectrum significantly hardens up to a photon index of 1.6. A search for broad-line region (BLR) absorption features in the γ -ray spectrum indicates that the emission region is located outside of the BLR. Radio very-long-baseline interferometry observations reveal a fast-moving knot interacting with a standing jet feature around the time of the flare. As the standing feature is located ∼50 pc from the black hole, the emission region of the flare may have been located at a significant distance from the black hole. If this is indeed a true correlation, the VHE γ rays must have been produced far down in the jet, where turbulent plasma crosses a standing shock.
Publisher: American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
Date: 28-11-2014
Abstract: Supermassive black holes with masses of millions to billions of solar masses are commonly found in the centers of galaxies. Astronomers seek to image jet formation using radio interferometry but still suffer from insufficient angular resolution. An alternative method to resolve small structures is to measure the time variability of their emission. Here we report on gamma-ray observations of the radio galaxy IC 310 obtained with the MAGIC (Major Atmospheric Gamma-ray Imaging Cherenkov) telescopes, revealing variability with doubling time scales faster than 4.8 min. Causality constrains the size of the emission region to be smaller than 20% of the gravitational radius of its central black hole. We suggest that the emission is associated with pulsar-like particle acceleration by the electric field across a magnetospheric gap at the base of the radio jet.
Publisher: American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
Date: 27-06-2008
Abstract: The atmospheric Cherenkov gamma-ray telescope MAGIC, designed for a low-energy threshold, has detected very-high-energy gamma rays from a giant flare of the distant Quasi-Stellar Radio Source (in short: radio quasar) 3C 279, at a distance of more than 5 billion light-years (a redshift of 0.536). No quasar has been observed previously in very-high-energy gamma radiation, and this is also the most distant object detected emitting gamma rays above 50 gigaelectron volts. Because high-energy gamma rays may be stopped by interacting with the diffuse background light in the universe, the observations by MAGIC imply a low amount for such light, consistent with that known from galaxy counts.
Publisher: EDP Sciences
Date: 04-2018
DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361/201731169
Abstract: Context. The large jet kinetic power and non-thermal processes occurring in the microquasar SS 433 make this source a good candidate for a very high-energy (VHE) gamma-ray emitter. Gamma-ray fluxes above the sensitivity limits of current Cherenkov telescopes have been predicted for both the central X-ray binary system and the interaction regions of SS 433 jets with the surrounding W50 nebula. Non-thermal emission at lower energies has been previously reported, indicating that efficient particle acceleration is taking place in the system. Aim. We explore the capability of SS 433 to emit VHE gamma rays during periods in which the expected flux attenuation due to periodic eclipses ( P orb ~ 13.1 days) and precession of the circumstellar disk ( P pre ~ 162 days) periodically covering the central binary system is expected to be at its minimum. The eastern and western SS 433/W50 interaction regions are also examined using the whole data set available. We aim to constrain some theoretical models previously developed for this system with our observations. Methods. We made use of dedicated observations from the Major Atmospheric Gamma Imaging Cherenkov telescopes (MAGIC) and High Energy Spectroscopic System (H.E.S.S.) of SS 433 taken from 2006 to 2011. These observation were combined for the first time and accounted for a total effective observation time of 16.5 h, which were scheduled considering the expected phases of minimum absorption of the putative VHE emission. Gamma-ray attenuation does not affect the jet/medium interaction regions. In this case, the analysis of a larger data set amounting to ~40–80 h, depending on the region, was employed. Results. No evidence of VHE gamma-ray emission either from the central binary system or from the eastern/western interaction regions was found. Upper limits were computed for the combined data set. Differential fluxes from the central system are found to be ≲ 10 −12 –10 −13 TeV −1 cm −2 s −1 in an energy interval ranging from ~few × 100 GeV to ~few TeV. Integral flux limits down to ~ 10 −12 –10 −13 ph cm −2 s −1 and ~ 10 −13 –10 −14 ph cm −2 s −1 are obtainedat 300 and 800 GeV, respectively. Our results are used to place constraints on the particle acceleration fraction at the inner jetregions and on the physics of the jet/medium interactions. Conclusions. Our findings suggest that the fraction of the jet kinetic power that is transferred to relativistic protons must be relatively small in SS 433, q p ≤ 2.5 × 10 −5 , to explain the lack of TeV and neutrino emission from the central system. At the SS 433/W50 interface, the presence of magnetic fields ≳10 μ G is derived assuming a synchrotron origin for the observed X-ray emission. This also implies the presence of high-energy electrons with E e − up to 50 TeV, preventing an efficient production of gamma-ray fluxes in these interaction regions.
Publisher: IOP Publishing
Date: 27-01-2021
Publisher: American Astronomical Society
Date: 16-02-2011
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 23-11-2011
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 08-2018
Publisher: Oxford University Press (OUP)
Date: 31-03-2022
Abstract: The advent of new all-sky radio surveys such as the VLA Sky Survey and the Rapid ASKAP Continuum Survey, performed with the latest generation radio telescopes, is opening new possibilities on the classification and study of extragalactic γ-ray sources, specially the underrepresented ones like radio galaxies. In particular, the enhanced sensitivity (sub-mJy level) and resolution (a few arcsec) provides a better morphological and spectral classification. In this work, we present the reclassification of a Fermi/Large Area Telescope (LAT) source as a new Fanaroff–Riley II radio galaxy from the International Gamma-Ray Astrophysics Laboratory s le found to emit at GeV energies. Through a broad-band spectral fitting from radio to γ-ray, we find that the commonly invoked jet contribution is not sufficient to account for the observed γ-ray flux. Our modelling suggests that the observed emission could mainly originate in the lobes (rather than in the radio core) by inverse Compton scattering of radio-emitting electrons off the ambient photon fields. In addition, we cross-correlated the latest generation radio surveys with a list of Fermi/LAT candidate misaligned AGN from the literature, finding four new radio galaxies with a double-lobed morphology. Additional four objects could be classified as such thanks to previous studies in the literature, for a total of nine new radio galaxies with GeV emission presented in this work. We foresee that further objects of this class might be found in the near future with the advent of the Square Kilometer Array, populating the GeV sky.
Publisher: American Astronomical Society
Date: 09-05-2017
Publisher: IOP Publishing
Date: 23-02-2021
Location: South Africa
No related grants have been discovered for Massimo Persic.