| 1. |
- Ackermann, M., et al.
(författare)
-
The fermi large area telescope on orbit : Event classification, instrument response functions, and calibration
- 2012
-
Ingår i: Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series. - : American Astronomical Society. - 0067-0049 .- 1538-4365. ; 203:1, s. 4-
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The Fermi Large Area Telescope (Fermi-LAT, hereafter LAT), the primary instrument on the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope (Fermi) mission, is an imaging, wide field-of-view, high-energy γ-ray telescope, covering the energy range from 20MeV to more than 300GeV. During the first years of the mission, the LAT team has gained considerable insight into the in-flight performance of the instrument. Accordingly, we have updated the analysis used to reduce LAT data for public release as well as the instrument response functions (IRFs), the description of the instrument performance provided for data analysis. In this paper, we describe the effects that motivated these updates. Furthermore, we discuss how we originally derived IRFs from Monte Carlo simulations and later corrected those IRFs for discrepancies observed between flight and simulated data. We also give details of the validations performed using flight data and quantify the residual uncertainties in the IRFs. Finally, we describe techniques the LAT team has developed to propagate those uncertainties into estimates of the systematic errors on common measurements such as fluxes and spectra of astrophysical sources.
|
|
| 2. |
- Ackermann, M., et al.
(författare)
-
Searches for cosmic-ray electron anisotropies with the Fermi Large Area Telescope
- 2010
-
Ingår i: PHYS REV D. - 1550-7998. ; 82:9, s. 092003-
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The Large Area Telescope on board the Fermi satellite (Fermi LAT) detected more than 1.6 x 10(6) cosmic-ray electrons/positrons with energies above 60 GeV during its first year of operation. The arrival directions of these events were searched for anisotropies of angular scale extending from similar to 10 degrees up to 90 degrees, and of minimum energy extending from 60 GeV up to 480 GeV. Two independent techniques were used to search for anisotropies, both resulting in null results. Upper limits on the degree of the anisotropy were set that depended on the analyzed energy range and on the anisotropy's angular scale. The upper limits for a dipole anisotropy ranged from similar to 0.5% to similar to 10%.
|
|
| 3. |
- Ackermann, M., et al.
(författare)
-
Anisotropies in the diffuse gamma-ray background measured by the Fermi LAT
- 2012
-
Ingår i: Physical Review D. - 1550-7998 .- 1550-2368. ; 85:8
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The contribution of unresolved sources to the diffuse gamma-ray background could induce anisotropies in this emission on small angular scales. We analyze the angular power spectrum of the diffuse emission measured by the Fermi Large Area Telescope at Galactic latitudes vertical bar b vertical bar > 30 degrees in four energy bins spanning 1-50 GeV. At multipoles l >= 155, corresponding to angular scales less than or similar to 2 degrees, angular power above the photon noise level is detected at >99.99% confidence level in the 1-2 GeV, 2-5 GeV, and 5-10 GeV energy bins, and at >99% confidence level at 10-50 GeV. Within each energy bin the measured angular power takes approximately the same value at all multipoles l >= 155, suggesting that it originates from the contribution of one or more unclustered source populations. The amplitude of the angular power normalized to the mean intensity in each energy bin is consistent with a constant value at all energies, C-P/< I >(2) 9.05 +/- 0.84 x 10(-6) sr, while the energy dependence of C-P is consistent with the anisotropy arising from one or more source populations with power-law photon spectra with spectral index Gamma(s) = 2.40 +/- 0.07. We discuss the implications of the measured angular power for gamma-ray source populations that may provide a contribution to the diffuse gamma-ray background.
|
|
| 4. |
- Ackermann, M., et al.
(författare)
-
Search for gamma-ray spectral lines with the Fermi Large Area Telescope and dark matter implications
- 2013
-
Ingår i: Physical Review D. - 1550-7998 .- 1550-2368. ; 88:8, s. 082002-
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) are a theoretical class of particles that are excellent dark matter candidates. WIMP annihilation or decay may produce essentially monochromatic gamma rays detectable by the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) against the astrophysical gamma-ray emission of the Galaxy. We have searched for spectral lines in the energy range 5-300 GeV using 3.7 years of data, reprocessed with updated instrument calibrations and an improved energy dispersion model compared to the previous Fermi-LAT Collaboration line searches. We searched in five regions selected to optimize sensitivity to different theoretically motivated dark matter density distributions. We did not find any globally significant lines in our a priori search regions and present 95% confidence limits for annihilation cross sections of self-conjugate WIMPs and decay lifetimes. Our most significant fit occurred at 133 GeV in our smallest search region and had a local significance of 3.3 standard deviations, which translates to a global significance of 1.5 standard deviations. We discuss potential systematic effects in this search, and examine the feature at 133 GeV in detail. We find that the use both of reprocessed data and of additional
|
|
| 5. |
- Ajello, M., et al.
(författare)
-
Constraints on dark matter models from a Fermi LAT search for high-energy cosmic-ray electrons from the Sun
- 2011
-
Ingår i: Physical Review D. - 1550-7998 .- 1550-2368. ; 84:3, s. 032007-
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- During its first year of data taking, the Large Area Telescope (LAT) onboard the Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope has collected a large sample of high-energy cosmic-ray electrons and positrons (CREs). We present the results of a directional analysis of the CRE events, in which we searched for a flux excess correlated with the direction of the Sun. Two different and complementary analysis approaches were implemented, and neither yielded evidence of a significant CRE flux excess from the Sun. We derive upper limits on the CRE flux from the Sun's direction, and use these bounds to constrain two classes of dark matter models which predict a solar CRE flux: (1) models in which dark matter annihilates to CREs via a light intermediate state, and (2) inelastic dark matter models in which dark matter annihilates to CREs.
|
|
| 6. |
|
|
| 7. |
- Bayley, PJ, et al.
(författare)
-
2013 SYR Accepted Poster Abstracts
- 2013
-
Ingår i: International journal of yoga therapy. - 1531-2054. ; 23:1, s. 32-53
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)
|
|
| 8. |
- Charles, E., et al.
(författare)
-
Sensitivity projections for dark matter searches with the Fermi large area telescope
- 2016
-
Ingår i: Physics reports. - : Elsevier BV. - 0370-1573 .- 1873-6270. ; 636, s. 1-46
-
Forskningsöversikt (refereegranskat)abstract
- The nature of dark matter is a longstanding enigma of physics; it may consist of particles beyond the Standard Model that are still elusive to experiments. Among indirect search techniques, which look for stable products from the annihilation or decay of dark matter particles, or from axions coupling to high-energy photons, observations of the gamma-ray sky have come to prominence over the last few years, because of the excellent sensitivity of the Large Area Telescope (LAT) on the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope mission. The LAT energy range from 20 meV to above 300 GeV is particularly well suited for searching for products of the interactions of dark matter particles. In this report we describe methods used to search for evidence of dark matter with the LAT, and review the status of searches performed with up to six years of LAT data. We also discuss the factors that determine the sensitivities of these searches, including the magnitudes of the signals and the relevant backgrounds, considering both statistical and systematic uncertainties. We project the expected sensitivities of each search method for 10 and 15 years of LAT data taking. In particular, we find that the sensitivity of searches targeting dwarf galaxies, which provide the best limits currently, will improve faster than the square root of observing time. Current LAT limits for dwarf galaxies using six years of data reach the thermal relic level for masses up to 120 GeV for the b (b) over bar annihilation channel for reasonable dark matter density profiles. With projected discoveries of additional dwarfs, these limits could extend to about 250 GeV. With as much as 15 years of LAT data these searches would be sensitive to dark matter annihilations at the thermal relic cross section for masses to greater than 400 GeV (200 GeV) in the b (b) over bar(tau(+)tau(-)) annihilation channels.
|
|
| 9. |
- Gomez-Vargas, G. A., et al.
(författare)
-
Dark matter implications of Fermi-LAT measurement of anisotropies in the diffuse gamma-ray background
- 2014
-
Ingår i: Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A. - : Elsevier BV. - 0168-9002 .- 1872-9576. ; 742, s. 149-153
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The detailed origin of the diffuse gamma-ray background is still unknown. However, the contribution of unresolved sources is expected to induce small-scale anisotropies in this emission, which may provide a way to identify and constrain the properties of its contributors. Recent studies have predicted the contributions to the angular power spectrum (APS) from extragalactic and galactic dark matter (DM) annihilation or decay. The Fermi-LAT collaboration reported detection of angular power with a significance larger than 3 sigma in the energy range from 1 GeV to 10 GeV on 22 months of data (Ackermann et al., 2012 [2]). For these preliminary results the already published Fermi-LAT APS measurements (Ackermann et al., 2012 [2]) are compared to the accurate predictions for DM anisotropies from state-of-the-art cosmological simulations as presented in Fornasa et at (2013) [1] to derive constraints on different DM candidates.
|
|
| 10. |
- Berenji, B., et al.
(författare)
-
Constraints on axions and axionlike particles from Fermi Large Area Telescope observations of neutron stars
- 2016
-
Ingår i: Physical Review D. - 2470-0010. ; 93:4
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We present constraints on the nature of axions and axionlike particles (ALPs) by analyzing gamma-ray data from neutron stars using the Fermi Large Area Telescope. In addition to axions solving the strong CP problem of particle physics, axions and ALPs are also possible dark matter candidates. We investigate axions and ALPs produced by nucleon-nucleon bremsstrahlung within neutron stars. We derive a phenomenological model for the gamma-ray spectrum arising from subsequent axion decays. By analyzing five years of gamma-ray data (between 60 and 200 MeV) for a sample of four nearby neutron stars, we do not find evidence for an axion or ALP signal; thus we obtain a combined 95% confidence level upper limit on the axion mass of 7.9 x 10(-2) eV, which corresponds to a lower limit for the Peccei-Quinn scale fa of 7.6 x 10(7) GeV. Our constraints are more stringent than previous results probing the same physical process, and are competitive with results probing axions and ALPs by different mechanisms.
|
|
