Related papers: Shining light through the Sun
In 2006 the stand-alone MAGIC-I telescope discovered very high energy gamma-ray emission from 3C279. Additional observations were triggered when the source entered an exceptionally bright optical state in January 2007 and the Fermi space…
Well-motivated extensions of the standard model predict ultra-light and fundamental pseudo-scalar particles (e.g., axions or axion-like particles: ALPs). Similarly to the Primakoff-effect for axions, ALPs can mix with photons and…
Very high-energy gamma-ray measurements of distant blazars can be well explained by secondary gamma rays emitted by cascades induced by ultra-high-energy cosmic rays. The secondary gamma rays will enable one to detect a large number of…
As the Lyman-alpha (Lya) line of neutral hydrogen is the brightest emission line in the solar spectrum, detecting increases in irradiance due to solar flares at this wavelength can be challenging due to the very high background. Previous…
From astronomical observations, we know that dark matter exists and makes up $\sim$25\% of our Universe. Recently the study of anomalous gamma-ray emission in the regions surrounding the galactic center has drawn a lot of attention. It has…
The past decades have witnessed a lot of progress in gravitational lensing with two main targets: stars and galaxies (with active galactic nuclei). The success is partially attributed to the continuous luminescence of these sources making…
Galactic transients, X-ray and gamma-ray binaries provide a proper environment for particle acceleration. This leads to the production of gamma rays with energies reaching the GeV-TeV regime. MAGIC has carried out deep observations of…
If weakly-interacting massive particles (WIMPs) make up the galactic dark matter halo, high densities of such particles would exist near massive bodies, such as the sun. The resulting annihilations are believed to produce neutrinos, gamma…
The blazar 3C 279, one of the brightest identified extragalactic objects in the gamma-ray sky, underwent a flare of a factor 10 amplitude in gamma-rays towards the end of a 3-week pointing by CGRO, in 1996 January-February. The flare peak…
Very high energy gamma-ray observations offer indirect methods for studying the highest energy cosmic rays in our Universe. The origin of cosmic rays at energies greater than $10^{18}$ eV remains a mystery, and many questions in particle…
We present two models for the cosmological UV background light, and calculate the opacity of GeV gamma--rays out to redshift 9. The contributors to the background include 2 possible quasar emissivities, and output from star--forming…
We have performed the first polarimetry of solar flare emission at gamma-ray energies (0.2-1 MeV). These observations were performed with the Reuven Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager (RHESSI) for two large flares: the GOES…
The surprising discovery by MAGIC of an intense, rapidly varying emission in the energy range 70 - 400 GeV from the flat spectrum radio quasar PKS 1222+216 represents a challenge for all interpretative scenarios. Indeed, in order to avoid…
Axion helioscopes search for solar axions and axion-like particles via inverse Primakoff conversion in strong laboratory magnets pointed at the Sun. While helioscopes can always measure the axion coupling to photons, the conversion signal…
The high-lights of ground-based very-high-energy (VHE, $E>100$ GeV) gamma-ray astronomy are reviewed. The summary covers both Galactic and extra-galactic sources. A total of at least 70 sources are currently known. Implications for our…
Motivated by the possibility of explaining the 3.5 keV line through dark matter decaying to axion-like particles that subsequently convert to photons, we study ALP-photon conversion for sightlines passing within 50 pc of the galactic…
The magnification effect due to gravitational lensing enhances the chances of detecting moderate-redshift ($z \sim 1$) sources in very-high-energy (VHE; $E > 100$ GeV) $\gamma$-rays by ground-based Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescope…
Reflection of light from surfaces is a very common, but complex phenomenon not only in science and technology, but in every day life. The underlying basic optical principles have been developed within the last five centuries using visible…
The status of the solar axion search with the CERN Axion Solar Telescope (CAST) will be discussed. Results from the first part of CAST phase II where the magnet bores were filled with \hefour gas at variable pressure in order to scan \ma up…
We revisit the flux of chameleons (light scalar particles which could play a role in the dark energy phenomenon) produced in the interior of the Sun. Our novel analysis incorporates various important details and new processes that have…