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Register a new userA multi-wavelength investigation of candidate milli-second pulsars in unassociated $gamma$-ray sources
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About one third of the 3033 $gamma$-ray sources in the Third Fermi-LAT Gamma-ray Source Catalogue (3FGL) are unidentified and do not have even a tentative association with a known object, hence they are defined as unassociated. Among Galactic $gamma$-ray sources, pulsars represent the largest class, with over 200 identifications to date. About one third of them are milli-second pulsars (MSPs) in binary systems. Therefore, it is plausible that a sizeable fraction of the unassociated Galactic $gamma$-ray sources belong to this class. We collected X-ray and optical observations of the fields of twelve unassociated Fermi sources that have been classified as likely MSPs according to statistical classification techniques. To find observational support for the proposed classification, we looked for periodic modulations of the X-ray and optical flux of these sources, which could be associated with the orbital period of a MSP in a tight binary system. Four of the observed sources were identified as binary MSPs, or proposed as high-confidence candidates, while this work was in progress. For these sources, we present the results of our follow-up investigations, whereas for the others we present possible evidence of new MSP identifications. In particular, we discuss the case of 3FGL J0744.1-2523 that we proposed as a possible binary MSP based upon the preliminary detection of a 0.115 d periodicity in the flux of its candidate optical counterpart. We also found very marginal evidence of periodicity in the candidate optical counterpart to 3FGL J0802.3-5610, at a period of 0.4159 d, which needs to be confirmed by further observations.
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The wealth of detections of millisecond pulsars (MSPs) in $gamma$-rays by {em Fermi} has spurred searches for these objects among the several unidentified $gamma$-ray sources. Interesting targets are a sub-class of binary MSPs, dubbed Black Widows (BWs) and Redbacks (RBs), which are in orbit with low-mass non-degenerate companions fully or partially ablated by irradiation from the MSP wind. These systems can be easily missed in radio pulsar surveys owing to the eclipse of the radio signal by the intra-binary plasma from the ablated companion star photosphere, making them better targets for multi-wavelength observations. We used optical and X-ray data from public databases to carry out a systematic investigation of all the unidentified $gamma$-ray sources from the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) Third Source Catalog (3FGL), which have been pre-selected as likely MSP candidates according to a machine-learning technique analysis. We tested our procedure by recovering known binary BW/RB identifications and searched for new ones, finding possible candidates. At the same time, we investigated previously proposed BW/RB identifications and we ruled out one of them based upon the updated $gamma$-ray source coordinates.
We searched for radio pulsars in 25 of the non-variable, unassociated sources in the Fermi LAT Bright Source List with the Green Bank Telescope at 820 MHz. We report the discovery of three radio and gamma-ray millisecond pulsars (MSPs) from a high Galactic latitude subset of these sources. All of the pulsars are in binary systems, which would have made them virtually impossible to detect in blind gamma-ray pulsation searches. They seem to be relatively normal, nearby (<=2 kpc) millisecond pulsars. These observations, in combination with the Fermi detection of gamma-rays from other known radio MSPs, imply that most, if not all, radio MSPs are efficient gamma-ray producers. The gamma-ray spectra of the pulsars are power-law in nature with exponential cutoffs at a few GeV, as has been found with most other pulsars. The MSPs have all been detected as X-ray point sources. Their soft X-ray luminosities of ~10^{30-31} erg/s are typical of the rare radio MSPs seen in X-rays.
We investigate the nature of the unidentified very-high-energy (VHE) gamma-ray object, HESS J1832-093, in a multi-wavelength context. Based on X-ray variability and spectral index ($Gamma_Xsim,1.5$), and its broad-band spectrum (which was remarkably similar to HESS J0632+057, a confirmed gamma-ray binary), HESS J1832-093 has been considered to be a strong gamma-ray binary candidate in previous works. In this work, we provide further evidence for this scenario. We obtained a spectrum of its IR counterpart using Gemini/Flamingo, finding absorption lines that are usually seen in massive stars, in particular O stars. We also obtained a rather steep ATCA spectrum ($alpha=-1.18^{+1.04}_{-0.88}$) which prefers a gamma-ray binary over an AGN scenario. Based on spatial-spectral analysis and variability search, we found that 4FGL J1832.9-0913 is possible to be associated with SNR G22.7-0.2 rather than with HESS J1832-093 only.
The HAWC Collaboration released the 2HWC catalog of TeV sources, in which 19 show no association with any known high-energy (HE; E > 10 GeV) or very-high-energy (VHE; E > 300 GeV) sources. This catalog motivated follow-up studies by both the MAGIC and Fermi-LAT observatories with the aim of investigating gamma-ray emission over a broad energy band. In this paper, we report the results from the first joint work between HAWC, MAGIC and Fermi-LAT on three unassociated HAWC sources: 2HWC J2006+341, 2HWC J1907+084* and 2HWC J1852+013*. Although no significant detection was found in the HE and VHE regimes, this investigation shows that a minimum 1 degree extension (at 95% confidence level) and harder spectrum in the GeV than the one extrapolated from HAWC results are required in the case of 2HWC J1852+013*, while a simply minimum extension of 0.16 degrees (at 95% confidence level) can already explain the scenario proposed by HAWC for the remaining sources. Moreover, the hypothesis that these sources are pulsar wind nebulae is also investigated in detail.
Aims. We present the second AGILE-GRID Catalog (2AGL) of {gamma}-ray sources in the 100 MeV-10 GeV energy range. Methods. With respect to previous AGILE-GRID catalogs, the current 2AGL Catalog is based on the first 2.3 years of science data from the AGILE mission (the so called pointing mode) and incorporates more data and several analysis improvements, including better calibrations at the event reconstruction level, an updated model for the Galactic diffuse gamma-ray emission, a refined procedure for point-like source detection, and the inclusion of a search for extended {gamma}-ray sources. Results. The 2AGL Catalog includes 175 high-confidence sources (above 4{sigma} significance) with their location regions and spectral properties, and a variability analysis with 4-day light curves for the most significant ones. Relying on the error region of each source position, including systematic uncertainties, 121 sources are considered as positionally associated with known couterparts at different wavelengths or detected by other {gamma}-ray instruments. Among the identified or associated sources, 62 are Active Galactic Nuclei (AGNs) of the blazar class. Pulsars represent the largest Galactic source class, with 40 associated pulsars, 7 of them with detected pulsation; 8 Supernova Remnants and 4 high-mass X-ray binaries have also been identified. A substantial number of 2AGL sources are unidentified: for 54 sources no known counterpart is found at different wavelengths. Among these sources, we discuss a sub-class of 29 AGILE-GRID-only {gamma}-ray sources that are not present in 1FGL, 2FGL or 3FGL catalogs; the remaining sources are unidentified in both 2AGL and 3FGL Catalogs. We also present an extension of the analysis of 2AGL sources detected in the 50-100 MeV energy range.
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