Exceptional Flares from the Crab Nebula in the Fermi Large Area Telescope
Abstract
The Crab Nebula continues to provide an enigmatic target for astrophysical studies. Current gamma-ray telescopes have opened a new chapter on Crab observations with detections of rapid and energetic flares that have not been found to have corresponding emission outside the MeV-GeV energy band. Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) measurements of flares with flux doubling times of ~6-8 hours and cutoffs in the photon spectrum above 300 MeV impose significant constraints on the origin and mechanism for the emission. The ongoing all-sky monitoring available from Fermi has enabled several LAT targets of opportunity accompanied by broad multiwavelength campaigns. I will review the LAT observations of the Crab and consider future prospects for the LAT to provide insight into where and how particles in the nebula are accelerated and generate the extreme gamma-ray variability.
- Publication:
-
American Astronomical Society Meeting Abstracts #223
- Pub Date:
- January 2014
- Bibcode:
- 2014AAS...22315320H