[en] Cygnus X-3 (Cyg X-3) is a remarkable Galactic microquasar (X-ray binary) emitting from radio to γ-ray energies. In this paper, we consider the hadronic model of emission of γ-rays above 100 MeV and their implications. We focus on the joint γ-ray and neutrino production resulting from proton-proton interactions within the binary system. We find that the required proton injection kinetic power, necessary to explain the γ-ray flux observed by AGILE and Fermi-LAT, is L_p ∼ 10³⁸ erg s^–1, a value in agreement with the average bolometric luminosity of the hypersoft state (when Cyg X-3 was repeatedly observed to produce transient γ-ray activity). If we assume an increase of the wind density at the superior conjunction, the asymmetric production of γ-rays along the orbit can reproduce the observed modulation. According to observational constraints and our modeling, a maximal flux of high-energy neutrinos would be produced for an initial proton distribution with a power-law index α = 2.4. The predicted neutrino flux is almost two orders of magnitude less than the two-month IceCube sensitivity at ∼1 TeV. If the protons are accelerated up to PeV energies, the predicted neutrino flux for a prolonged 'soft X-ray state' would be a factor of about three lower than the one-year IceCube sensitivity at ∼10 TeV. This study shows that, for a prolonged soft state (as observed in 2006) possibly related to γ-ray activity and a hard distribution of injected protons, Cyg X-3 might be close to being detectable by cubic-kilometer neutrino telescopes such as IceCube.

[en] The AGILE satellite detected transient high-energy γ -ray emission from the X-ray binary V404 Cygni, during the 2015 June outburst observed in radio, optical, X-ray, and soft γ -ray frequencies. The activity was observed by AGILE in the 50–400 MeV energy band, between 2015 June 24 UT 06:00:00 and 2015 June 26 UT 06:00:00 (MJD 57197.25–57199.25), with a detection significance of ∼4.3 σ . The γ -ray detection, consistent with a contemporaneous observation by Fermi -LAT, is correlated with a bright flare observed at radio and hard X-ray frequencies, and with a strong enhancement of the 511 keV line emission, possibly indicating plasmoid ejections in a lepton-dominated transient jet. The AGILE observations of this binary system are compatible with a microquasar scenario in which transient jets are responsible for the high-energy γ -ray emission.

[en] We discuss the possibility of using the observations by GLAST of steady gamma sources, as the Crab Nebula and some selected AGNs, to calibrate the Imaging Air Cherenkov Telescopes (IACT) and improve their energy resolution, in particular. We show that at around 100 GeV, exploiting the features in the spectrum of the Crab Nebula, the absolute energy calibration uncertainty of Cherenkov telescopes can be reduced to < 10%

[en] Cygnus X-1 (Cyg X-1) is the archetypal black hole binary system in our Galaxy. We report the main results of an extensive search for transient gamma-ray emission from Cygnus X-1 carried out in the energy range 100 MeV-3 GeV by the AGILE satellite, during the period 2007 July-2009 October. The total exposure time is about 300 days, during which the source was in the 'hard' X-ray spectral state. We divided the observing intervals in 2-4 week periods, and searched for transient and persistent emission. We report an episode of significant transient gamma-ray emission detected on 2009 October 16 in a position compatible with Cyg X-1 optical position. This episode, which occurred during a hard spectral state of Cyg X-1, shows that a 1-2 day time variable emission above 100 MeV can be produced during hard spectral states, having important theoretical implications for current Comptonization models for Cyg X-1 and other microquasars. Except for this one short timescale episode, no significant gamma-ray emission was detected by AGILE. By integrating all available data, we obtain a 2σ upper limit for the total integrated flux of F _γ,U.L. = 3 x 10^-8 ph cm^-2 s^-1 in the energy range 100 MeV-3 GeV. We then clearly establish the existence of a spectral cutoff in the energy range 1-100 MeV that applies to the typical hard state outside the flaring period and that confirms the historically known spectral cutoff above 1 MeV.

[en] We report on the extremely intense and fast gamma-ray flare above 100 MeV detected by AGILE from the Crab Nebula in mid-April 2011. This event is the fourth of a sequence of reported major gamma-ray flares produced by the Crab Nebula in the period 2007/mid-2011. These events are attributed to strong radiative and plasma instabilities in the inner Crab Nebula, and their properties are crucial for theoretical studies of fast and efficient particle acceleration up to 10¹⁵ eV. Here we study the very rapid flux and spectral evolution of the event that on 2011 April 16 reached the record-high peak flux of F = (26 ± 5) x 10^-6 photons cm^-2 s^-1 with a rise-time timescale that we determine to be in the range 6-10 hr. The peak flaring gamma-ray spectrum reaches a distinct maximum near 500 MeV with no substantial emission above 1 GeV. The very rapid rise time and overall evolution of the Crab Nebula flare strongly constrain the acceleration mechanisms and challenge MHD models. We briefly discuss the theoretical implications of our observations.

[en] Gamma-ray emission from the Crab Nebula has been recently shown to be unsteady. In this paper, we study the flux and spectral variability of the Crab above 100 MeV on different timescales ranging from days to weeks. In addition to the four main intense and day-long flares detected by AGILE and Fermi-LAT between 2007 September and 2012 September, we find evidence for week-long and less intense episodes of enhanced gamma-ray emission that we call 'waves'. Statistically significant 'waves' show timescales of 1-2 weeks, and can occur by themselves or in association with shorter flares. We present a refined flux and spectral analysis of the 2007 September-October gamma-ray enhancement episode detected by AGILE that shows both 'wave' and flaring behavior. We extend our analysis to the publicly available Fermi-LAT data set and show that several additional 'wave' episodes can be identified. We discuss the spectral properties of the 2007 September 'wave'/flare event and show that the physical properties of the 'waves' are intermediate between steady and flaring states. Plasma instabilities inducing 'waves' appear to involve spatial distances l ∼ 10¹⁶ cm and enhanced magnetic fields B ∼ (0.5-1) mG. Day-long flares are characterized by smaller distances and larger local magnetic fields. Typically, the deduced total energy associated with the 'wave' phenomenon (E_w ∼ 10⁴² erg, where E_w is the kinetic energy of the emitting particles) is comparable with that associated to the flares, and can reach a few percent of the total available pulsar spin-down energy. Most likely, flares and waves are the product of the same class of plasma instabilities that we show acting on different timescales and radiation intensities.

[en] We report the results of an extensive search through the AGILE data for a gamma-ray counterpart to the LIGO gravitational-wave (GW) event GW150914. Currently in spinning mode, AGILE has the potential of cover 80% of the sky with its gamma-ray instrument, more than 100 times a day. It turns out that AGILE came within a minute of the event time of observing the accessible GW150914 localization region. Interestingly, the gamma-ray detector exposed ∼65% of this region during the 100 s time intervals centered at −100 and +300 s from the event time. We determine a 2 σ flux upper limit in the band 50 MeV–10 GeV, UL = 1.9 × 10"−"8 erg cm"−"2 s"−"1, obtained ∼300 s after the event. The timing of this measurement is the fastest ever obtained for GW150914, and significantly constrains the electromagnetic emission of a possible high-energy counterpart. We also carried out a search for a gamma-ray precursor and delayed emission over five timescales ranging from minutes to days: in particular, we obtained an optimal exposure during the interval −150/−30 s. In all these observations, we do not detect a significant signal associated with GW150914. We do not reveal the weak transient source reported by Fermi -GBM 0.4 s after the event time. However, even though a gamma-ray counterpart of the GW150914 event was not detected, the prospects for future AGILE observations of GW sources are decidedly promising.

[en] We present the results of multi-year gamma-ray observations by the AGILE satellite of the black hole binary system Cygnus X-1. In a previous investigation we focused on gamma-ray observations of Cygnus X-1 in the hard state during the period mid-2007/2009. Here we present the results of the gamma-ray monitoring of Cygnus X-1 during the period 2010/mid-2012 which includes a remarkably prolonged 'soft state' phase (2010 June-2011 May). Previous 1-10 MeV observations of Cyg X-1 in this state hinted at a possible existence of a non-thermal particle component with substantial modifications of the Comptonized emission from the inner accretion disk. Our AGILE data, averaged over the mid-2010/mid-2011 soft state of Cygnus X-1, provide a significant upper limit for gamma-ray emission above 100 MeV of F_soft < 20 × 10^–8 photons cm^–2 s^–1 , excluding the existence of prominent non-thermal emission above 100 MeV during the soft state of Cygnus X-1. We discuss theoretical implications of our findings in the context of high-energy emission models of black hole accretion. We also discuss possible gamma-ray flares detected by AGILE. In addition to a previously reported episode observed by AGILE in 2009 October during the hard state, we report a weak but important candidate for enhanced emission which occurred at the end of 2010 June (2010 June 30 10:00-2010 July 2 10:00 UT) exactly coinciding with a hard-to-soft state transition and before an anomalous radio flare. An appendix summarizes all previous high-energy observations and possible detections of Cygnus X-1 above 1 MeV.

[en] FRB 180916 is a most intriguing source capable of producing repeating fast radio bursts with a periodic 16.3 day temporal pattern. The source is well positioned in a star-forming region in the outskirts of a nearby galaxy at 150 Mpc distance. In this Letter we report on the X-ray and γ-ray observations of FRB 180916 obtained by AGILE and Swift. We focused especially on the recurrent 5 day time intervals of enhanced radio bursting. In particular, we report on the results obtained in the time intervals 2020 February 3–8, 2020 February 25, 2020 March 5–10, and 2020 March 22–28 during a multiwavelength campaign involving high-energy and radio observations of FRB 180916. We also searched for temporal coincidences at millisecond timescales between the 32 known radio bursts of FRB 180916 and X-ray and MeV events detectable by AGILE. We do not detect any simultaneous event or any extended X-ray and γ-ray emission on timescales of hours/days/weeks. Our cumulative X-ray (0.3–10 keV) flux upper limit of 5 × 10⁻¹⁴ erg cm⁻² s⁻¹ (obtained during 5 day active intervals from several 1–2 ks integrations) translates into an isotropic luminosity upper limit of L _X,UL ∼ 1.5 × 10⁴¹ erg s⁻¹. Deep γ-ray observations above 100 MeV over a many-year timescale provide an average luminosity upper limit one order of magnitude larger. These results provide the so-far most stringent upper limits on high-energy emission from the FRB 180916 source. Our results constrain the dissipation of magnetic energy from a magnetar-like source of radius R _m, internal magnetic field B _m, and dissipation timescale τ _d to satisfy the relation $R_{m,6}^3{B}_{m,16}^2{\mathrm{\tau <!--\; ??\; -->}}_{d,8}^{-<!--\; ???\; -->1}\lesssim <!--\; ???\; -->1$, where R _m,6 is R _m in units of 10⁶ cm, B _m,16 is B _m in units of 10¹⁶ G, and τ _d,8 in units of 10⁸ s.

[en] The LIGO/Virgo Collaboration (LVC) detected on 2017 January 4 a significant gravitational-wave (GW) event (now named GW170104). We report in this Letter the main results obtained from the analysis of hard X-ray and gamma-ray data of the AGILE mission that repeatedly observed the GW170104 localization region (LR). At the LVC detection time T _0 AGILE observed about 36% of the LR. The gamma-ray imaging detector did not reveal any significant emission in the energy range 50 MeV–30 GeV. Furthermore, no significant gamma-ray transients were detected in the LR that was repeatedly exposed over timescales of minutes, hours, and days. We also searched for transient emission using data near T _0 of the omnidirectional detector MCAL operating in the energy band 0.4–100 MeV. A refined analysis of MCAL data shows the existence of a weak event (that we call “E2”) with a signal-to-noise ratio of 4.4 σ lasting about 32 ms and occurring 0.46 ± 0.05 s before T _0. A study of the MCAL background and of the false-alarm rate of E2 leads to the determination of a post-trial significance between 2.4σ and 2.7σ for a temporal coincidence with GW170104. We note that E2 has characteristics similar to those detected from the weak precursor of GRB 090510. The candidate event E2 is worth consideration for simultaneous detection by other satellites. If associated with GW170104, it shows emission in the MeV band of a short burst preceding the final coalescence by 0.46 s and involving ∼10"−"7 of the total rest mass energy of the system.