Diamond is considered as a very promising material for the development of devices for radiation detection. Unlike other conventional photoconductive detectors diamond-based devices should provide high discrimination between UV and visible radiation. In this work we present the electro-optical properties of devices based on randomly oriented diamond films, synthesized in a microwave plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition reactor. A comparative study on devices with coplanar interdigitated Cr/Au electrodes (with different interelectrode pitches) made of films grown simultaneously on intrinsic and p-doped silicon (100) substrates has been performed. The chemical-structural, morphological, electrical and optical properties of ROD films have been studied. In particular, the optical response has been measured in air using a Xe flash lamp coupled with an optical quartz fiber and a properly tailored front-end electronics based on a charge sensitive amplifier. Experimental results gave indications on how the device performances are dependent on the two types of employed substrates. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The origin of Galactic cosmic rays is a century-long puzzle. Indirect evidence points to their acceleration by supernova shockwaves, but we know little of their escape from the shock and their evolution through the turbulent medium surrounding massive stars. Gamma rays can probe their spreading through the ambient gas and radiation fields. The Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) has observed the star-forming region of Cygnus X. The 1- to 100-gigaelectronvolt images reveal a 50-parsec-wide cocoon of freshly accelerated cosmic rays that flood the cavities carved by the stellar winds and ionization fronts from young stellar clusters. It provides an example to study the youth of cosmic rays in a superbubble environment before they merge into the older Galactic population.

Satellite galaxies of the Milky Way are among the most promising targets for dark matter searches in gamma rays. We present a search for dark matter consisting of weakly interacting massive particles, applying a joint likelihood analysis to 10 satellite galaxies with 24 months of data of the Fermi Large Area Telescope. No dark matter signal is detected. Including the uncertainty in the dark matter distribution, robust upper limits are placed on dark matter annihilation cross sections. The 95% confidence level upper limits range from about 10(-26) cm(3) s(-1) at 5 GeV to about 5 x 10(-23) cm(3) s(-1) at 1 TeV, depending on the dark matter annihilation final state. For the first time, using gamma rays, we are able to rule out models with the most generic cross section (similar to 3 x 10(-26) cm(3) s(-1) for a purely s-wave cross section), without assuming additional boost factors.

Cosmic rays are particles (mostly protons) accelerated to relativistic speeds. Despite wide agreement that supernova remnants (SNRs) are the sources of galactic cosmic rays, unequivocal evidence for the acceleration of protons in these objects is still lacking. When accelerated protons encounter interstellar material, they produce neutral pions, which in turn decay into gamma rays. This offers a compelling way to detect the acceleration sites of protons. The identification of pion-decay gamma rays has been difficult because high-energy electrons also produce gamma rays via bremsstrahlung and inverse Compton scattering. We detected the characteristic pion-decay feature in the gamma-ray spectra of two SNRs, IC 443 and W44, with the Fermi Large Area Telescope. This detection provides direct evidence that cosmic-ray protons are accelerated in SNRs.

Observations of occultations of bright. gamma-ray sources by the Sun may reveal predicted pair halos around blazars and/or new physics, such as, e.g., hypothetical light dark matter particles-axions. We use Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope (Fermi) data to analyze four occultations of blazar 3C 279 by the Sun on October 8 each year from 2008 to 2011. A combined analysis of the observations of these occultations allows a point-like source at the position of 3C 279 to be detected with significance of approximate to 3 sigma, but does not reveal any significant excess over the flux expected from the quiescent Sun. The likelihood ratio test rules out complete transparency of the Sun to the blazar. gamma-ray emission at a 3s confidence level.

A young and energetic pulsar powers the well-known Crab Nebula. Here, we describe two separate gamma-ray (photon energy greater than 100 mega-electron volts) flares from this source detected by the Large Area Telescope on board the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. The first flare occurred in February 2009 and lasted approximately 16 days. The second flare was detected in September 2010 and lasted approximately 4 days. During these outbursts, the gamma-ray flux from the nebula increased by factors of four and six, respectively. The brevity of the flares implies that the gamma rays were emitted via synchrotron radiation from peta-electron-volt (10(15) electron volts) electrons in a region smaller than 1.4 x 10(-2) parsecs. These are the highest-energy particles that can be associated with a discrete astronomical source, and they pose challenges to particle acceleration theory.

We measured separate cosmic-ray electron and positron spectra with the Fermi Large Area Telescope. Because the instrument does not have an onboard magnet, we distinguish the two species by exploiting Earth’s shadow, which is offset in opposite directions for opposite charges due to Earth’s magnetic field. We estimate and subtract the cosmic-ray proton background using two different methods that produce consistent results. We report the electron-only spectrum, the positron-only spectrum, and the positron fraction between 20 and 200 GeV. We confirm that the fraction rises with energy in the 20–100 GeV range. The three new spectral points between 100 and 200 GeV are consistent with a fraction that is continuing to rise with energy.

The light emitted by stars and accreting compact objects through the history of the universe is encoded in the intensity of the extragalactic background light (EBL). Knowledge of the EBL is important to understand the nature of star formation and galaxy evolution, but direct measurements of the EBL are limited by galactic and other foreground emissions. Here, we report an absorption feature seen in the combined spectra of a sample of gamma-ray blazars out to a redshift of z ∼ 1.6. This feature is caused by attenuation of gamma rays by the EBL at optical to ultraviolet frequencies and allowed us to measure the EBL flux density in this frequency band.

The second catalog of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) detected by the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) in two years of scientific operation is presented. The second LAT AGN catalog (2LAC) includes 1017 gamma-ray sources located at high Galactic latitudes (vertical bar b vertical bar > 10 degrees) that are detected with a test statistic (TS) greater than 25 and associated statistically with AGNs. However, some of these are affected by analysis issues and some are associated with multiple AGNs. Consequently, we define a Clean Sample which includes 886 AGNs, comprising 395 BL Lacertae objects (BL Lac objects), 310 flat-spectrum radio quasars (FSRQs), 157 candidate blazars of unknown type (i.e., with broadband blazar characteristics but with no optical spectral measurement yet), 8 misaligned AGNs, 4 narrow-line Seyfert 1 (NLS1s), 10 AGNs of other types, and 2 starburst galaxies. Where possible, the blazars have been further classified based on their spectral energy distributions (SEDs) as archival radio, optical, and X-ray data permit. While almost all FSRQs have a synchrotron-peak frequency < 10(14) Hz, about half of the BL Lac objects have a synchrotron-peak frequency > 10(15) Hz. The 2LAC represents a significant improvement relative to the first LAT AGN catalog (1LAC), with 52% more associated sources. The full characterization of the newly detected sources will require more broadband data. Various properties, such as gamma-ray fluxes and photon power-law spectral indices, redshifts, gamma-ray luminosities, variability, and archival radio luminosities and their correlations are presented and discussed for the different blazar classes. The general trends observed in 1LAC are confirmed.

We implemented a novel technique to perform the collective spectral analysis of sets of multiple gamma-ray point sources using the data collected by the Large Area Telescope onboard the Fermi satellite. The energy spectra of the sources are reconstructed starting from the photon counts and without assuming any spectral model for both the sources and the background. In case of faint sources, upper limits on their fluxes are evaluated with a Bayesian approach. This analysis technique is very useful when several sources with similar spectral features are studied, such as sources of gamma rays from annihilation of dark matter particles. We present the results obtained by applying this analysis to a sample of dwarf spheroidal galaxies and to the Milky Way dark matter halo. The analysis of dwarf spheroidal galaxies yields upper limits on the product of the dark matter pair annihilation cross section and the relative velocity of annihilating particles that are well below those predicted by the canonical thermal relic scenario in a mass range from a few GeV to a few tens of GeV for some annihilation channels. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

We show the latest results of Fermi-LAT observations of the quiescent Sun during the first 18 months of the mission. During this period the solar activity was at its minimum, hence the solar emission induced by cosmic rays was at its maximum. Two emission components are clearly distinguished: the point-like emission from the solar disk due to the cosmic-ray cascades in the solar atmosphere, and the extended emission due to inverse Compton scattering of cosmic ray electrons on solar photons in the heliosphere. We present the entire analysis, showing spectra and angular profiles of both components and discuss the comparison with models and future plans. Finally we report on Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) detection of the first solar flares and discussing the possible emission mechanisms.

The Large Size Telescopes, LSTs, located at the center of the Cherenkov Telescope Array, CTA, will be sensitive for low energy gamma-rays. The camera on the LST focal plane is optimized to detect low energy events based on a high photon detection efficiency and high speed electronics. Also the trigger system is designed to detect low energy showers as much as possible. In addition, the camera is required to work stably without maintenance in a few tens of years. In this contribution we present the design of the camera for the first LST and the status of its development and production.

In October 2013, the Italian Ministry approved the funding of a Research & Development (R&D) study, within the "Progetto Premiale TElescopi CHErenkov made in Italy (TECHE)", devoted to the development of a demonstrator for a camera for the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) consortium. The demonstrator consists of a sensor plane based on the Silicon Photomultiplier (SiPM) technology and on an electronics designed for signal sampling. Preliminary tests on a matrix of sensors produced by the Fondazione Bruno Kessler (FBK-Trento, Italy) and on electronic prototypes produced by SITAEL S.p.A. will be presented. In particular, we used different designs of the electronics in order to optimize the output signals in terms of tail cancellation. This is crucial for applications where a high background is expected, as for the CTA experiment.

The High Energy cosmic-Radiation Detection (HERD) facility is one of several space astronomy payloads of the cosmic lighthouse program onboard China's Space Station, which is planned for operation starting around 2020 for about 10 years. The main scientific objectives of HERD are indirect dark matter search, precise cosmic ray spectrum and composition measurements up to the knee energy, and high energy gamma-ray monitoring and survey. HERD is composed of a 3-D cubic calorimeter (CALO) surrounded by microstrip silicon trackers (STKs) from five sides except the bottom. CALO is made of about 10(4) cubes of LYSO crystals, corresponding to about 55 radiation lengths and 3 nuclear interaction lengths, respectively. The top STK microstrips of seven X-Y layers are sandwiched with tungsten converters to make precise directional measurements of incoming electrons and gamma-rays. In the baseline design, each of the four side SKTs is made of only three layers microstrips. All STKs will also be used for measuring the charge and incoming directions of cosmic rays, as well as identifying back scattered tracks. With this design, HERD can achieve the following performance: energy resolution of 1% for electrons and gamma-rays beyond 100 GeV, 20% for protons from 100 GeV to 1 PeV; electron/proton separation power better than 10(-5); effective geometrical factors of >3 m(2) sr for electron and diffuse gamma-rays, >2 m(2) sr for cosmic ray nuclei. R&D is under way for reading out the LYSO signals with optical fiber coupled to image intensified CCD and the prototype of one layer of CALO.

Spectral energy distributions (SEDs) and radio continuum spectra are presented for a northern sample of 104 extragalactic radio sources, based on the Planck Early Release Compact Source Catalogue (ERCSC) and simultaneous multifrequency data. The nine Planck frequencies, from 30 to 857 GHz, are complemented by a set of simultaneous observations ranging from radio to gamma-rays. This is the first extensive frequency coverage in the radio and millimetre domains for an essentially complete sample of extragalactic radio sources, and it shows how the individual shocks, each in their own phase of development, shape the radio spectra as they move in the relativistic jet. The SEDs presented in this paper were fitted with second and third degree polynomials to estimate the frequencies of the synchrotron and inverse Compton (IC) peaks, and the spectral indices of low and high frequency radio data, including the Planck ERCSC data, were calculated. SED modelling methods are discussed, with an emphasis on proper, physical modelling of the synchrotron bump using multiple components. Planck ERCSC data also suggest that the original accelerated electron energy spectrum could be much harder than commonly thought, with power-law index around 1.5 instead of the canonical 2.5. The implications of this are discussed for the acceleration mechanisms effective in blazar shocks. Furthermore in many cases the Planck data indicate that gamma-ray emission must originate in the same shocks that produce the radio emission.