Related papers: The Galactic Transient Sky with Swift
Supergiant Fast X-ray transients are a subclass of high mass X-ray binaries displaying a peculiar and still poorly understood extreme variability in the X-ray domain. These sources undergo short sporadic outbursts (LX ~ 10^36 - 10^37…
Magnetar giant flares (MGFs) are among the most luminous high-energy transients in the local universe, consisting of a short, intense MeV gamma-ray spike followed by a softer, pulsating X-ray tail and possibly delayed radioactive emission.…
The Swift Gamma Ray Burst Explorer has proven to be an incredible platform for studying the multiwavelength properties of supernova explosions. In its first ten years, Swift has observed over three hundred supernovae. The ultraviolet…
We aimed to detect a supernova (SN) shock breakout (SBO) with observations in time domain. The SBO marks the first escape of radiation from the blast wave that breaks through the photosphere of the star and launches the SN ejecta, and peaks…
Binary neutron star (NS) mergers are among the most promising astrophysical sources of gravitational wave emission for Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo, expected to be operational in 2015. Finding electromagnetic counterparts to these…
We present an overview of our Supergiant Fast X-ray Transients (SFXT) project, that started in 2007, by highlighting the unique observational contribution Swift is giving to this exciting new field. By means of outburst detection with…
I will review recent advances in the field of blazars, highlighting the contribution of Swift. Together with other operating satellites (most notably Fermi, but also AGILE, WISE, Planck) and ground based facilities such as Cherenkov…
We describe our monitoring strategy which best exploits the sensitivity and flexibility of Swift to study the long-term behaviour of Supergiant Fast X-ray Transients (SFXTs). We present observations of the recent outbursts from two objects…
The exploration of the time-variable astronomical sky at submm wavelengths is rapidly becoming more feasible with large sky surveys by Cosmic Microwave Background telescopes with tens of thousands of detectors. Observations with the Atacama…
We report here on the recent results of a monitoring campaign we have been carrying out with Swift/XRT on a sample of four Supergiant Fast X-ray Transients. The main goal of this large programme (with a net Swift/XRT exposure of 540 ks,…
The millimeter transient sky is largely unexplored, with measurements limited to follow-up of objects detected at other wavelengths. High-angular-resolution telescopes designed for measurement of the cosmic microwave background offer the…
The Large Area Telescope on the Fermi gamma-ray Space Telescope (FGST, ex-GLAST) provides unprecedented sensitivity for all-sky monitoring of gamma-ray activity. It is an adequate telescope to detect transient sources, since the observatory…
Supergiant fast X-ray transients (SFXTs) are high mass X-ray binaries (HMXBs) hosting a neutron star and an OB supergiant companion. We examine the available Swift data, as well as other new or archival/serendipitous data, on three sources:…
We report on the X-ray properties of the new transient Swift J0840.7$-$3516, discovered with Swift/BAT in 2020 February, using extensive data of Swift, MAXI, NICER, and NuSTAR. The source flux increased for $\sim 10^3$ s after the…
The nature of very faint X-ray transients (VFXTs) - transient X-ray sources that peak at luminosities $L_X\lesssim10^{36} {\rm erg s^{-1}}$ - is poorly understood. The faint and often short-lived outbursts make characterising VFXTs and…
The recent discovery of a new class of recurrent and fast X-ray transient sources, the Supergiant Fast X-ray Transients, poses interesting questions on the possible mechanisms responsible for their transient X-ray emission. The association…
We report results of a novel high-energy follow-up observation of a potential Fast Radio Burst. The radio burst was detected by VLA/realfast and followed-up by the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory in very low latency utilizing new operational…
The Swift Burst Alert Telescope (BAT) is a coded aperture gamma-ray instrument with a large field of view that was designed to detect and localize transient events. When a transient is detected, either on-board or externally, the BAT saves…
We report on continued monitoring observations of the Galactic center carried out by the X-ray telescope aboard the Swift satellite in 2008 and 2009. This campaign revealed activity of the five known X-ray transients AX J1745.6-2901, CXOGC…
The millimeter/sub-millimeter (mm/sub-mm) sky remains a rich but under-explored frontier for transient and variable phenomena. A wide-field, high-sensitivity instrument with a large aperture and degree-scale field of view would open this…