Discovery of Powerful Gamma-Ray Flares from the Crab Nebula
Abstract
The well known Crab Nebula is at the center of the SN1054 supernova remnant. It consists of a rotationally-powered pulsar interacting with a surrounding nebula through a relativistic particle wind. The emissions originating from the pulsar and nebula have been considered to be essentially stable. Here we report the detection of strong gamma-ray (100 MeV-10 GeV) flares observed by the AGILE satellite in September, 2010 and October, 2007. In both cases, the unpulsed flux increased by a factor of 3 compared to the non-flaring flux. The flare luminosity and short timescale favor an origin near the pulsar, and we discuss Chandra Observatory X-ray and HST optical follow-up observations of the nebula. Our observations challenge standard models of nebular emission and require power-law acceleration by shock-driven plasma wave turbulence within a ~1-day timescale.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1101.2311,
title = {Discovery of Powerful Gamma-Ray Flares from the Crab Nebula},
author = {M. Tavani and A. Bulgarelli and V. Vittorini and A. Pellizzoni and E. Striani and P. Caraveo and M. C. Weisskopf and A. Tennant and G. Pucella and A. Trois and E. Costa and Y. Evangelista and C. Pittori and F. Verrecchia and E. Del Monte and R. Campana and M. Pilia and A. De Luca and I. Donnarumma and D. Horns and C. Ferrigno and C. O. Heinke and M. Trifoglio and F. Gianotti and S. Vercellone and A. Argan and G. Barbiellini and P. W. Cattaneo and A. W. Chen and T. Contessi and F. D'Ammando and G. DeParis and G. Di Cocco and G. Di Persio and M. Feroci and A. Ferrari and M. Galli and A. Giuliani and M. Giusti and C. Labanti and I. Lapshov and F. Lazzarotto and P. Lipari and F. Longo and F. Fuschino and M. Marisaldi and S. Mereghetti and E. Morelli and E. Moretti and A. Morselli and L. Pacciani and F. Perotti and G. Piano and P. Picozza and M. Prest and M. Rapisarda and A. Rappoldi and A. Rubini and S. Sabatini and P. Soffitta and E. Vallazza and A. Zambra and D. Zanello and F. Lucarelli and P. Santolamazza and P. Giommi and L. Salotti and G. F. Bignami},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1101.2311},
year = {2011}
}
Comments
23 pages (including Supporting On-line Material), 8 figures, 1 table. Version published in Science Express on January 6, 2011 (available at http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2011/01/05/science.1200083)