Publication Date:
2011-01-08
Description:
The well-known Crab Nebula is at the center of the SN1054 supernova remnant. It consists of a rotationally powered pulsar interacting with a surrounding nebula through a relativistic particle wind. The emissions originating from the pulsar and nebula have been considered to be essentially stable. Here, we report the detection of strong gamma-ray (100 mega-electron volts to 10 giga-electron volts) flares observed by the AGILE satellite in September 2010 and October 2007. In both cases, the total gamma-ray flux increased by a factor of three compared with the non-flaring flux. The flare luminosity and short time scale favor an origin near the pulsar, and we discuss Chandra Observatory x-ray and Hubble Space Telescope optical follow-up observations of the nebula. Our observations challenge standard models of nebular emission and require power-law acceleration by shock-driven plasma wave turbulence within an approximately 1-day time scale.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Tavani, M -- Bulgarelli, A -- Vittorini, V -- Pellizzoni, A -- Striani, E -- Caraveo, P -- Weisskopf, M C -- Tennant, A -- Pucella, G -- Trois, A -- Costa, E -- Evangelista, Y -- Pittori, C -- Verrecchia, F -- Del Monte, E -- Campana, R -- Pilia, M -- De Luca, A -- Donnarumma, I -- Horns, D -- Ferrigno, C -- Heinke, C O -- Trifoglio, M -- Gianotti, F -- Vercellone, S -- Argan, A -- Barbiellini, G -- Cattaneo, P W -- Chen, A W -- Contessi, T -- D'Ammando, F -- DePris, G -- Di Cocco, G -- Di Persio, G -- Feroci, M -- Ferrari, A -- Galli, M -- Giuliani, A -- Giusti, M -- Labanti, C -- Lapshov, I -- Lazzarotto, F -- Lipari, P -- Longo, F -- Fuschino, F -- Marisaldi, M -- Mereghetti, S -- Morelli, E -- Moretti, E -- Morselli, A -- Pacciani, L -- Perotti, F -- Piano, G -- Picozza, P -- Prest, M -- Rapisarda, M -- Rappoldi, A -- Rubini, A -- Sabatini, S -- Soffitta, P -- Vallazza, E -- Zambra, A -- Zanello, D -- Lucarelli, F -- Santolamazza, P -- Giommi, P -- Salotti, L -- Bignami, G F -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2011 Feb 11;331(6018):736-9. doi: 10.1126/science.1200083. Epub 2011 Jan 6.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica-Istituto di Astrofisica Spaziale e Fisica Cosmica (INAF-IASF) Roma, via del Fosso del Cavaliere 100, 00133 Roma, Italy. pi.agile@iasf-roma.inaf.it〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21212318" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
