Gamma-ray flux depressions of the Crab nebula in the high-energy range
arXiv:2004.03964 · doi:10.1093/mnras/staa1921
Abstract
The giant gamma-ray flares of the Crab nebula discovered by AGILE and Fermi observatories came as a surprise and have challenged the existing models of pulsar wind nebulae. We have carried out an analysis of 10.5 years of Fermi-LAT observations (Aug 2008 -- Feb 2019) and investigated variability of the Crab nebula in the 100-300 MeV range. Besides the flares, we found several month long depressions of the gamma-ray flux and identified several cases of sharp flux drops, where during one week the flux decreased by an order of magnitude with respect to its average value. No statistically significant variations of the nebula flux in the 10 GeV range were found in the data. We discuss possible implications of the observed gamma-ray flux depressions on the model of synchrotron emission of the Crab nebula.
7 pages, 8 figures, matches the published version
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