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Monday, June 5

• Janeth Valverde - B2 1215+30 Long Term Gamma-ray Study with Fermi-LAT & VERITAS  

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  We characterize the blazar B2 1215+30 (z=0.131) in the high (HE) and very high (VHE) gamma- ray energy domains. Blazars are a type of active galactic nucleus, very powerful systems with a super massive black hole at their center that outshines the rest of the galaxy, and whose relativistic jets point approximately in the direction of the Earth. These extreme objects are prolific gamma-ray emitters and all their subclasses are particularly variable at all wavelengths. The study of blazar variability at different wavelengths is crucial to test models attempting to identify the nature of the jet particles and the scale of the gamma-rays emission zones. For B2 1215+30, the largest HE flares detected by Fermi-LAT occurred in Oct. 2008 and Feb. 2014, this last one having its brightest counterpart at VHE detected by VERITAS. We will report on our progress on the temporal and spectral analysis of the BL Lac blazar B2 1215+30, with all the Fermi-LAT and VERITAS available data, from year 2008 to 2016. The detailed Fermi-LAT light curve we have obtained will allow us to run variability tests, which in turn might provide us with some clues about the physical processes underneath.

• Marcin Marculewicz - Weak emission-line quasars (WLQ)  

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  Weak emission-line quasars (WLQ) are objects with enormous weak emission-lines (e.g. EW (Ly a) ≤ 10Å ; Diamond-Stanic et al. 2009). The properties of WLQs are different from those of BL Lac objects but consistent with normal AGNs (Plotkin et al. 2010). There are several explanations of weakness ofemission- lines. The first possibility is existence of a cold accretion disk (Laor & Davis 2011) or a radiatively inefficient accretion flow (Yuan & Narayan 2004). The next explanation is a presence of shielding gas, which could be a part of a slim disk. This part prevents ionizing photons from reaching the broad emission-line region(BELR). The following description provides Shemmer et al. (2010) who propose the BELR is built anemic. Hryniewicz et al. (2009) proposed the next explanation that perhaps in all weak emission line quasars the activity has just started. Any explanation of WLQ phenomena is still not given.

• Fabio Carfado

• Monica Breed
• Hannes Thiersen
  
• Isabella Mereu
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Wednesday, June 7

• Brent Limyansky - Analyzing Pulsar “Glitches” Using the Fermi LAT 

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  Pulsars are rapidly rotating neutron stars which produce pulsed emission across the electromagnetic spectrum. Abrupt and unpredictable changes in emission frequency are known as “glitches”. In young pulsars, theory predicts that glitches are the result of a starquake-induced change in geometry of the neutron star’s crust. These types of glitches have the potential to produce gravitational waves, although they are not believed to be detectable with current technology. In rotation-powered pulsars, glitches are believed to come from interactions between surface and interior regions of the neutron star. Glitches are challenging to observe with pointed instruments, as the time of their occurrence cannot be predicted. The Fermi LAT, which continually monitors over 200 gamma-ray pulsars, is not hindered in this manner and is therefore well suited to observation and study of glitches. In this project, I will examine previously detected pulsars over the full time range of the mission. Glitches will be identified and catalogued, with subsequent analysis having the potential to investigate the glitching mechanism, the nature of neutron star interiors, and glitches as a source of gravitational waves.

• Tiffany Lewis - A First-Principles Radiative Transport Model for Steady-State Blazar Spectra 

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  Blazars are luminous sources across the entire electromagnetic spectrum, but the spectral formation mechanisms in these sources are not well understood. We have developed a new model for blazar spectra in which we numerically integrate the first-principles electron transport equation to generate the electron number distribution with respect to energy.  Our transport model considers shock acceleration, adiabatic expansion, stochastic acceleration due to MHD waves, Bohm diffusion, synchrotron radiation, and inverse-Compton radiation.  We implement the full Klein-Nishina cross-section for interactions with photons from dust and 26 individual lines from the broad line region.  We use the solution for the electron distribution to predict multi-wavelength SED spectra for 3C 279. This new self-consistent model provides an unprecedented view into the jet physics at play in this source, especially the relative strength of the shock and stochastic acceleration components and the size of the acceleration region.  We show that our new Compton + synchrotron blazar model is the first to successfully fit the FermiLAT gamma-ray data for this source based on a first-principles physical calculation.

• Sambid Wasti - Title
• Hester Schutte
• Cori Fletcher
• Tiaan Bezuidenhout
• Tejaswita Sharma
• Isabella Mereu
  
  

Supporting Material

Liz's favorite page on livetime and exposure: [http://fermi.gsfc.nasa.gov/ssc/data/analysis/documentation/Cicerone/Cicerone_Likelihood/Exposure.html]

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