Abstract
We present an incremental version (4FGL-DR3, for Data Release 3) of the fourth Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) catalog of
γ
-ray sources. Based on the first 12 years of science data in the ...energy range from 50 MeV to 1 TeV, it contains 6658 sources. The analysis improves on that used for the 4FGL catalog over eight years of data: more sources are fit with curved spectra, we introduce a more robust spectral parameterization for pulsars, and we extend the spectral points to 1 TeV. The spectral parameters, spectral energy distributions, and associations are updated for all sources. Light curves are rebuilt for all sources with 1 yr intervals (not 2 month intervals). Among the 5064 original 4FGL sources, 16 were deleted, 112 are formally below the detection threshold over 12 yr (but are kept in the list), while 74 are newly associated, 10 have an improved association, and seven associations were withdrawn. Pulsars are split explicitly between young and millisecond pulsars. Pulsars and binaries newly detected in LAT sources, as well as more than 100 newly classified blazars, are reported. We add three extended sources and 1607 new point sources, mostly just above the detection threshold, among which eight are considered identified, and 699 have a plausible counterpart at other wavelengths. We discuss the degree-scale residuals to the global sky model and clusters of soft unassociated point sources close to the Galactic plane, which are possibly related to limitations of the interstellar emission model and missing extended sources.
The fourth catalog of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) detected by the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope Large Area Telescope (4LAC) between 2008 August 4 and 2016 August 2 contains objects located at ...high Galactic latitudes ( ). It includes 85% more sources than the previous 3LAC catalog based on 4 yr of data. AGNs represent at least 79% of the high-latitude sources in the fourth Fermi-Large Area Telescope Source Catalog (4FGL), which covers the energy range from 50 MeV to 1 TeV. In addition, gamma-ray AGNs are found at low Galactic latitudes. Most of the 4LAC AGNs are blazars (98%), while the remainder are other types of AGNs. The blazar population consists of 24% Flat Spectrum Radio Quasars (FSRQs), 38% BL Lac-type objects, and 38% blazar candidates of unknown types (BCUs). On average, FSRQs display softer spectra and stronger variability in the gamma-ray band than BL Lacs do, confirming previous findings. All AGNs detected by ground-based atmospheric Cerenkov telescopes are also found in the 4LAC.
We present a catalog of sources detected above 10 GeV by the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) in the first 7 years of data using the Pass 8 event-level analysis. This is the Third Catalog of Hard ...Fermi-LAT Sources (3FHL), containing 1556 objects characterized in the 10 GeV-2 TeV energy range. The sensitivity and angular resolution are improved by factors of 3 and 2 relative to the previous LAT catalog at the same energies (1FHL). The vast majority of detected sources (79%) are associated with extragalactic counterparts at other wavelengths, including 16 sources located at very high redshift (z > 2). Of the sources, 8% have Galactic counterparts and 13% are unassociated (or associated with a source of unknown nature). The high-latitude sky and the Galactic plane are observed with a flux sensitivity of 4.4 to 9.5 × 10−11 ph cm−2 s−1, respectively (this is approximately 0.5% and 1% of the Crab Nebula flux above 10 GeV). The catalog includes 214 new γ-ray sources. The substantial increase in the number of photons (more than 4 times relative to 1FHL and 10 times to 2FHL) also allows us to measure significant spectral curvature for 32 sources and find flux variability for 163 of them. Furthermore, we estimate that for the same flux limit of 10−12 erg cm−2 s−1, the energy range above 10 GeV has twice as many sources as the range above 50 GeV, highlighting the importance, for future Cherenkov telescopes, of lowering the energy threshold as much as possible.
The Large Area Telescope (LAT) aboard the Fermi spacecraft routinely observes high-energy emission from gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). Here we present the second catalog of LAT-detected GRBs, covering the ...first 10 yr of operations, from 2008 to 2018 August 4. A total of 186 GRBs are found; of these, 91 show emission in the range 30-100 MeV (17 of which are seen only in this band) and 169 are detected above 100 MeV. Most of these sources were discovered by other instruments (Fermi/GBM, Swift/BAT, AGILE, INTEGRAL) or reported by the Interplanetary Network (IPN); the LAT has independently triggered on four GRBs. This catalog presents the results for all 186 GRBs. We study onset, duration, and temporal properties of each GRB, as well as spectral characteristics in the 100 MeV-100 GeV energy range. Particular attention is given to the photons with the highest energy. Compared with the first LAT GRB catalog, our rate of detection is significantly improved. The results generally confirm the main findings of the first catalog: the LAT primarily detects the brightest GBM bursts, and the high-energy emission shows delayed onset as well as longer duration. However, in this work we find delays exceeding 1 ks and several GRBs with durations over 10 ks. Furthermore, the larger number of LAT detections shows that these GRBs not only cover the high-fluence range of GBM-detected GRBs but also sample lower fluences. In addition, the greater number of detected GRBs with redshift estimates allows us to study their properties in both the observer and rest frames. Comparison of the observational results with theoretical predictions reveals that no model is currently able to explain all results, highlighting the role of LAT observations in driving theoretical models.
The region around the Galactic Center (GC) is now well established to be brighter at energies of a few GeV than what is expected from conventional models of diffuse gamma-ray emission and catalogs of ...known gamma-ray sources. We study the GeV excess using 6.5 yr of data from the Fermi Large Area Telescope. We characterize the uncertainty of the GC excess spectrum and morphology due to uncertainties in cosmic-ray source distributions and propagation, uncertainties in the distribution of interstellar gas in the Milky Way, and uncertainties due to a potential contribution from the Fermi bubbles. We also evaluate uncertainties in the excess properties due to resolved point sources of gamma rays. The GC is of particular interest, as it would be expected to have the brightest signal from annihilation of weakly interacting massive dark matter (DM) particles. However, control regions along the Galactic plane, where a DM signal is not expected, show excesses of similar amplitude relative to the local background. Based on the magnitude of the systematic uncertainties, we conservatively report upper limits for the annihilation cross-section as a function of particle mass and annihilation channel.
We present a search for spatial extension in high-latitude ( ) sources in recent Fermi point source catalogs. The result is the Fermi High-Latitude Extended Sources Catalog, which provides source ...extensions (or upper limits thereof) and likelihood profiles for a suite of tested source morphologies. We find 24 extended sources, 19 of which were not previously characterized as extended. These include sources that are potentially associated with supernova remnants and star-forming regions. We also found extended γ-ray emission in the vicinity of the Cen A radio lobes and-at GeV energies for the first time-spatially coincident with the radio emission of the SNR CTA 1, as well as from the Crab Nebula. We also searched for halos around active galactic nuclei, which are predicted from electromagnetic cascades induced by the e+e− pairs that are deflected in intergalactic magnetic fields. These pairs are produced when γ-rays interact with background radiation fields. We do not find evidence for extension in individual sources or in stacked source samples. This enables us to place limits on the flux of the extended source components, which are then used to constrain the intergalactic magnetic field to be stronger than 3 × 10−16 G for a coherence length λ 10 kpc, even when conservative assumptions on the source duty cycle are made. This improves previous limits by several orders of magnitude.
ABSTRACT
According to radiative models, radio galaxies and quasars are predicted to produce gamma rays from the earliest stages of their evolution. Exploring their high-energy emission is crucial for ...providing information on the most energetic processes, the origin and the structure of the newly born radio jets. Taking advantage of more than 11 yr of Fermi-LAT data, we investigate the gamma-ray emission of 162 young radio sources (103 galaxies and 59 quasars), the largest sample of young radio sources used so far for such a gamma-ray study. We separately analyse each source and perform the first stacking analysis of this class of sources to investigate the gamma-ray emission of the undetected sources. We detect significant gamma-ray emission from 11 young radio sources, 4 galaxies, and 7 quasars, including the discovery of significant gamma-ray emission from the compact radio galaxy PKS 1007+142 (z = 0.213). The cumulative signal of below-threshold young radio sources is not significantly detected. However, it is about one order of magnitude lower than those derived from the individual sources, providing stringent upper limits on the gamma-ray emission from young radio galaxies (Fγ < 4.6 × 10−11 ph cm−2 s−1) and quasars (Fγ < 10.1 × 10−11 ph cm−2 s−1), and enabling a comparison with the models proposed. With this analysis of more than a decade of Fermi-LAT observations, we can conclude that while individual young radio sources can be bright gamma-ray emitters, the collective gamma-ray emission of this class of sources is not bright enough to be detected by Fermi-LAT.
We present the first Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) low energy catalog (1FLE) of sources detected in the energy range 30 – 100 MeV. The imaging Compton telescope (COMPTEL) onboard NASA’s Compton ...Gamma-Ray Observatory detected sources below 30 MeV, while catalogs of point sources released by the Fermi-LAT and EGRET collaborations use energies above 100 MeV. Because the Fermi-LAT detects gamma rays with energies as low as 20 MeV, we create a list of sources detected in the energy range between 30 and 100 MeV, which closes a gap of point source analysis between the COMPTEL catalog and the Fermi-LAT catalogs. One of the main challenges in the analysis of point sources is the construction of the background diffuse emission model. In our analysis, we use a background-independent method to search for point-like sources based on a wavelet transform implemented in the PGWave code. The 1FLE contains 198 sources detected above 3σ significance with eight years and nine months of the Fermi-LAT data. For 187 sources in the 1FLE catalog we have found an association in the Fermi-LAT 3FGL catalog: 148 are extragalactic, 22 are Galactic, and 17 are unclassified in the 3FGL. The ratio of the number of flat spectrum radio quasars (FSRQ) to BL Lacertae (BL Lacs) in 1FLE is three to one, which can be compared with an approximately 1:1 ratio for the 3FGL or a 1:6 ratio for 3FHL. The higher ratio of the FSRQs in the 1FLE is expected due to generally softer spectra of FSRQs relative to BL Lacs. Most BL Lacs in 1FLE are of low-synchrotron peaked blazar type (18 out of 31), which have softer spectra and higher redshifts than BL Lacs on average. Correspondingly, we find that the average redshift of the BL Lacs in 1FLE is higher than in 3FGL or 3FHL. There are 11 sources that do not have associations in the 3FGL. Most of the unassociated sources either come from regions of bright diffuse emission or have several known 3FGL sources in the vicinity, which can lead to source confusion. The remaining unassociated sources have significance less than 4σ.
Abstract
We report the discovery of GRB 221009A, the highest flux gamma-ray burst (GRB) ever observed by the Fermi Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (Fermi-GBM). This GRB has continuous prompt emission lasting ...more than 600 s, which smoothly transitions to afterglow emission visible in the Fermi-GBM energy range (8 keV–40 MeV), and total energetics higher than any other burst in the Fermi-GBM sample. By using a variety of new and existing analysis techniques we probe the spectral and temporal evolution of GRB 221009A. We find no emission prior to the Fermi-GBM trigger time (
t
0
; 2022 October 9 at 13:16:59.99 UTC), indicating that this is the time of prompt emission onset. The triggering pulse exhibits distinct spectral and temporal properties suggestive of the thermal, photospheric emission of shock breakout, with significant emission up to ∼15 MeV. We characterize the onset of external shock at
t
0
+ 600 s and find evidence of a plateau region in the early-afterglow phase, which transitions to a slope consistent with Swift-XRT afterglow measurements. We place the total energetics of GRB 221009A in context with the rest of the Fermi-GBM sample and find that this GRB has the highest total isotropic-equivalent energy (
E
γ
,iso
= 1.0 × 10
55
erg) and second highest isotropic-equivalent luminosity (
L
γ
,iso
= 9.9 × 10
53
erg s
–1
) based on its redshift of
z
= 0.151. These extreme energetics are what allowed us to observe the continuously emitting central engine of Fermi-GBM from the beginning of the prompt emission phase through the onset of early afterglow.
Context.
According to radiative models, radio galaxies may produce
γ
-ray emission from the first stages of their evolution. However, very few such galaxies have been detected by the
Fermi
Large Area ...Telescope (LAT) so far.
Aims.
NGC 3894 is a nearby (
z
= 0.0108) object that belongs to the class of compact symmetric objects (CSOs, i.e., the most compact and youngest radio galaxies), which is associated with a
γ
-ray counterpart in the Fourth
Fermi
-LAT source catalog. Here we present a study of the source in the
γ
-ray and radio bands aimed at investigating its high-energy emission and assess its young nature.
Methods.
We analyzed 10.8 years of
Fermi
-LAT data between 100 MeV and 300 GeV and determined the spectral and variability characteristics of the source. Multi-epoch very long baseline array (VLBA) observations between 5 and 15 GHz over a period of 35years were used to study the radio morphology of NGC 3894 and its evolution.
Results.
NGC 3894 is detected in
γ
-rays with a significance >9
σ
over the full period, and no significant variability has been observed in the
γ
-ray flux on a yearly time-scale. The spectrum is modeled with a flat power law (Γ = 2.0 ± 0.1) and a flux on the order of 2.2 × 10
−9
ph cm
−2
s
−1
. For the first time, the VLBA data allow us to constrain with high precision the apparent velocity of the jet and counter-jet side to be
β
app, NW
= 0.132 ± 0.004 and
β
app, SE
= 0.065 ± 0.003, respectively.
Conclusions.
Fermi
-LAT and VLBA results favor the youth scenario for the inner structure of this object, with an estimated dynamical age of 59 ± 5 years. The estimated range of viewing angle (10° <
θ
< 21°) does not exclude a possible jet-like origin of the
γ
-ray emission.
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