Extreme Particle Acceleration in Microquasar Jets and Pulsar Wind Nebulae with the MAGIC Telescopes

This exhaustive work sheds new light on unsolved questions in gamma-ray astrophysics. It presents not only a complete introduction to the non-thermal Universe, but also a description of the Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov technique and the MAGIC telescopes. The Fermi-LAT satellite and the HAWC Observatory are also described, as results from both are included. The physics section of the book is divided into microquasars and pulsar wind nebulae (PWNe), and includes extended overviews of both. In turn, the book discusses constraints on particle acceleration and gamma-ray production in microquasar jets, based on the analyses of MAGIC data on Cygnus X-1, Cygnus X-3 and V404 Cygni. Moreover, it presents the discovery of high-energy gamma-ray emissions from Cygnus X-1, using Fermi-LAT data. The book includes the first joint work between MAGIC, Fermi-LAT and HAWC, and discusses the hypothetical PWN nature of the targets in depth. It reports on a PWN population study that discusses, for the first time, the importance of the surrounding medium for gamma-ray production, and in closing presents technical work on the first Large-Size-Telescope (LST; CTA Collaboration), along with a complete description of the camera.

Auteur
After obtaining the Physics Degree in Universidad de Santiago de Compostela (USC), Dr. Alba Fernández Barral accomplished the master degree in Astrophysics, Particle Physics and Cosmology at the Università de Barcelona (UB). Afterwards, she joined the gamma-ray group in the Institute de Física d'Altes Energies (IFAE), where she performed her PhD thesis within the MAGIC and CTA Collaborations. During this thesis period, she carried out several research sojourns in USA (at Michigan Technological University, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and University of Maryland, within Fermi-LAT and HAWC groups) and in Germany at the Max-Planck-Institut für Kernphysik. She successfully defended her thesis on October 2017 at IFAE.

Contenu

Part I: Introduction to the Non-thermal Universe.- Cosmic Rays and Gamma-ray Astrophysics.- Gamma-ray Telescopes.- Part II: Microquasars in the Very High-energy Gamma-ray Regime.- Microquasars, Binary Systems with Powerful Jets.- Cygnus X-1.- Cygnus X-3.- V404 Cygni.- Part III: PWNe in the Very High-energy Gamma-ray Regime.- Introduction to Pulsar Wind Nebulae.- Follow-up Studies of HAWC Sources.- PWN Studies Around High Spin-down Power Fermi-LAT Pulsars.- Part IV: Quality Control of LST Camera Subsystems.- Quality Control of LST Camera Subsystems.- Summary and Concluding Remarks.