Scott is a 5th Year PhD student working with his advisor, Dr. Marco Ajello, in High-energy Astrophysics. Check out his paper here .
“ A number of objects both within and outside our Galaxy are known to have energetic outbursts known as flares, which sometimes emit high-energy gamma rays. These dramatic gamma-ray transient events have been well-studied on short (seconds) and long (years) time scales, yet week-long time scales for these events has rarely been studied. Furthermore, very few of these events are known to originate within the Milky Way (known as Galactic flares). Understanding the rate of Galactic gamma-ray flares is important to understand dynamics within the Milky Way and can help theorists constrain models of Galactic feedback, dynamics, and the types of objects responsible for gamma-ray emission in our galaxy. Analyzing over 14 years of data we identified that, on average, ~8.5 Galactic flares occur each year. Lastly, although there is only one known case of a flaring pulsar wind nebula (the Crab), we have detected six potential candidates that may be the site of additional flaring pulsar wind nebulae.”
An all-sky map of Gamma-ray flares detected by the Fermi Large Area Telescope using the Fermi All-sky Variability Analysis technique. Green circles indicate flares of unknown origin, while blue indicate flares of known origin (either extragalactic or Galactic).