Related papers: In-orbit background for X-ray detectors
Various burst origin scenarios require a host object in the burst error box or near a well-located position. For example, a host galaxy should be present in the standard cosmological models. We present a methodology which evaluates whether…
Minimization of charged particle background in X-ray telescopes is a well known issue. Charged particles (chiefly protons and electrons) naturally present in the cosmic environment constitute an important background source when they collide…
The likelihood of detecting individual discrete sources of cosmic rays depends on the mean separation between sources. The analysis here derives the minimum separation that makes it likely that the closest source is detectable. For…
We discuss interpretation of the cosmic infrared background (CIB) anisotropies detected by us recently in the Spitzer IRAC based measurements. The fluctuations are approximately isotropic on the sky consistent with their cosmological…
A handful of new experiments aimed at measuring the as-yet-undetected polarization of the cosmic background radiation are described, with somewhat more detail given for three experiments with which the authors are are associated.
We show that the observed fluxes, spectra and sky distributions of the high energy diffuse backgrounds of astronomical neutrinos, gamma rays and cosmic ray positrons satisfy simple relations expected from their common production in hadronic…
By now there is substantial evidence that Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs) originate at cosmological distances from very powerful explosions. The interaction between a GRB and its surrounding environment has dramatic consequences on the environment…
Compact Symmetric Objects (CSOs) show radio features such as jets, lobes, hot spots that are contained within the central 1 kpc region of their host galaxy. Thus, they are thought to be among the progenitors of large-scale radio galaxies. A…
Prepared for the 2014 ISAPP summer school, this review is focused on space-borne and balloon-borne cosmic-ray and gamma-ray detectors. It is meant to introduce the fundamental concepts necessary to understand the instrument performance…
Space-based X-ray detectors are subject to significant fluxes of charged particles in orbit, notably energetic cosmic ray protons, contributing a significant background. We develop novel machine learning algorithms to detect charged…
X-ray spectroscopy is a sensitive probe of stellar winds. X-rays originate from optically thin shock-heated plasma deep inside the wind and propagate outwards throughout absorbing cool material. Recent analyses of the line ratios from…
During the last two decades Gamma-Ray Astronomy has emerged as a powerful tool to study cosmic ray physics. In fact, photons are not deviated by galactic or extragalactic magnetic fields so their directions bring the information of the…
Recent years have witnessed the remarkable developments made by deep learning techniques for object detection, a fundamentally challenging problem of computer vision. Nevertheless, there are still difficulties in training accurate deep…
When an X-ray area detector based on a single crystalline material, for instance, a state of the art hybrid pixel detector, is illuminated from a point source by monochromatic radiation, a pattern of lines appears which overlays the…
Little is presently known about the nature of ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULX). Different hypotheses have been proposed to explain their properties: intermediate-mass BHs, Kerr BHs, young SNR, or background AGN. Some of the current…
Shadow observations provide a powerful tool to separate foreground components of the soft diffuse X-ray background (SDXB) from the background components. Such observations have now established that the ``local'' foreground is made of the…
Non-Gaussian imprints on the cosmic microwave background radiation (CBR) sky are within the grasp of current experiments. A clear non-Gaussian signature would be point-like sources. We have examined the nature of possible point sources that…
Grazing-incidence X-ray optics have revolutionized X-ray astrophysics. The ability to concentrate flux to a tiny detection region provides a dramatic reduction in background and a consequent very large improvement in sensitivity. The X-ray…
A considerable fraction of incident high-energy photons from astrophysical transients such as Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs) is Compton scattered by the Earth's atmosphere. These photons, sometimes referred to as the "reflection component",…
Relativistic axions can be readily produced in a broad variety of transient sources, such as axion star bosenova explosions, supernovae or even evaporating primordial black holes. We develop a general framework describing the resulting…