THE FERMI ALL-SKY VARIABILITY ANALYSIS: A LIST OF FLARING GAMMA-RAY SOURCES AND THE SEARCH FOR TRANSIENTS IN OUR GALAXY
Ackermann, M. ; Ajello, M. ; Albert, A. ; Cavazzuti, E. ;
Jul - 2013
DOI: 10.1088/0004-637X/771/1/57
ISSN : 0004-637X ;
journal : The Astrophysical Journal

Volume : 771 ; Issue : 1
type: Article Journal

Abstract
In this paper, we present the Fermi All-sky Variability Analysis (FAVA), a tool to systematically study the variability of the gamma-ray sky measured by the Large Area Telescope on board the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. For each direction on the sky, FAVA compares the number of gamma-rays observed in a given time window to the number of gamma-rays expected for the average emission detected from that direction. This method is used in weekly time intervals to derive a list of 215 flaring gamma-ray sources. We proceed to discuss the 27 sources found at Galactic latitudes smaller than 10° and show that, despite their low latitudes, most of them are likely of extragalactic origin.

keywords : Fermi,High Energy Astrophysics,Local Group of galaxies