For over a century, scientists have been detecting elementary particles of extraterrestrial origin, known as cosmic rays. These particles carry energy that sometimes exceeds their rest mass by a million times. The mechanism behind this energization and the environmental properties capable of such a process remains unclear. Among these cosmic rays, the dominant population is […]
Stellar-mass black holes as particle accelerators Read More »
‘Cause you’re a sky, ’cause you’re a sky full of starsI’m gonna give you my heart‘Cause you’re a sky, ’cause you’re a sky full of stars‘Cause you light up the pathI don’t care, go on and tear me apartI don’t care if you do, ooh ooooh oooooooh ooooooooohhhh Uhh sorry, I really like this song!
A sky full of… PeVatrons Read More »
X-ray binaries with a Galactic black hole (BHXRBs) have recently been detected in GeV and TeV γ-rays. The radiative mechanism responsible for this emission is not yet fully understood and both leptonic and hadronic processes seem viable. In the former scenario, electrons are accelerated to high energies and dominate the non-thermal spectrum with synchrotron and
Hadronic emission from the jets of X-ray binaries? Read More »
Can you smell this? It’s the fragrance of gunpowder! Let us then investigate the “smoking gun”! Oh, I love this expression! But why do we relate the expression, “smoking gun”, to astrophysical neutrinos? The answer is simple. We cannot observe particles being accelerated to high energies in situ. To be more precise, we cannot observe
The Cubic Kilometer Neutrino Telescope or KM3NeT Read More »
On 18 December 2010, a huge human task was accomplished. 5,160 spherical optical sensors called Digital Optical Modules (DOMs) were transported and placed under the frozen surface of Antarctica. 52 institutions from 12 countries around the globe contributed (and still do) to this collaboration. The DOMs, attached to 86 vertical “strings”, cover a cubic-kilometer area
IceCube South Pole Neutrino Observatory Read More »
SPOILER ALERT! We are in the year 2030 AD! So, if you do not wish to learn your future, you should stop reading now! Alright, for those of you who are still curious. Hundreds of new Supernovae have been detected. Structures in Supernova Remnants have shed light on particle acceleration, particle interactions and have also
Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) Read More »
Time: 22nd of September 2017, 20:54:30.43 Coordinated Universal Time. Location: cold Antarctica. A suspect has just activated the alarm. The panicked guards are running from monitor-to-monitor searching for a trace of the suspect. Trained hounds are being released smelling the air for familiar clues. Within 43 seconds the news has spread to investigators all over
Can flaring blazars be the origin of high-energy neutrinos? Read More »
or How to detect high energy γ rays Radiation is being produced all over the universe. This radiation can either be observed by detectors on the surface of the Earth or be absorbed by the atmosphere. As Figure 1 demonstrates, radiation at radio wavelengths and visible light can reach the terrestrial observatories located around
Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Technique Read More »
My name is Dimitris Kantzas and I am a PhD student in Sera’s group. My research is focused on studying the multiwavelength radiation emitted in the vicinity of accreting black holes in order to better understand how these sources radiate, where exactly this radiation originates and if this radiation affects the physics and the morphology
