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Register a new userThe angular power spectrum of the diffuse gamma-ray emission as measured by the Fermi Large Area Telescope and constraints on its Dark Matter interpretation
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The isotropic gamma-ray background arises from the contribution of unresolved sources, including members of confirmed source classes and proposed gamma-ray emitters such as the radiation induced by dark matter annihilation and decay. Clues about the properties of the contributing sources are imprinted in the anisotropy characteristics of the gamma-ray background. We use 81 months of Pass 7 Reprocessed data from the Fermi Large Area Telescope to perform a measurement of the anisotropy angular power spectrum of the gamma-ray background. We analyze energies between 0.5 and 500 GeV, extending the range considered in the previous measurement based on 22 months of data. We also compute, for the first time, the cross-correlation angular power spectrum between different energy bins. We find that the derived angular spectra are compatible with being Poissonian, i.e. constant in multipole. Moreover, the energy dependence of the anisotropy suggests that the signal is due to two populations of sources, contributing, respectively, below and above 2 GeV. Finally, using data from state-of-the-art numerical simulations to model the dark matter distribution, we constrain the contribution from dark matter annihilation and decay in Galactic and extragalactic structures to the measured anisotropy. These constraints are competitive with those that can be derived from the average intensity of the isotropic gamma-ray background. Data are available at https://www-glast.stanford.edu/pub_data/552.
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At a distance of 50 kpc and with a dark matter mass of $sim10^{10}$ M$_{odot}$, the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is a natural target for indirect dark matter searches. We use five years of data from the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) and updated models of the gamma-ray emission from standard astrophysical components to search for a dark matter annihilation signal from the LMC. We perform a rotation curve analysis to determine the dark matter distribution, setting a robust minimum on the amount of dark matter in the LMC, which we use to set conservative bounds on the annihilation cross section. The LMC emission is generally very well described by the standard astrophysical sources, with at most a $1-2sigma$ excess identified near the kinematic center of the LMC once systematic uncertainties are taken into account. We place competitive bounds on the dark matter annihilation cross section as a function of dark matter particle mass and annihilation channel.
We report on the first Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) measurements of the so-called extra-galactic diffuse gamma-ray emission (EGB). This component of the diffuse gamma-ray emission is generally considered to have an isotropic or nearly isotropic distribution on the sky with diverse contributions discussed in the literature. The derivation of the EGB is based on detailed modelling of the bright foreground diffuse Galactic gamma-ray emission (DGE), the detected LAT sources and the solar gamma-ray emission. We find the spectrum of the EGB is consistent with a power law with differential spectral index g = 2.41+/-0.05 and intensity, I(> 100 MeV) = (1.03+/-0.17) 10^-5 cm^-2 s^-1 sr^-1, where the error is systematics dominated. Our EGB spectrum is featureless, less intense, and softer than that derived from EGRET data.
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 LAT at Galactic latitudes |b| > 30 deg in four energy bins spanning 1 to 50 GeV. At multipoles ell ge 155, corresponding to angular scales lesssim 2 deg, angular power above the photon noise level is detected at >99.99% CL in the 1-2 GeV, 2-5 GeV, and 5-10 GeV energy bins, and at >99% CL at 10-50 GeV. Within each energy bin the measured angular power takes approximately the same value at all multipoles ell ge 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.
The Extragalactic Background Light (EBL) includes photons with wavelengths from ultraviolet to infrared, which are effective at attenuating gamma rays with energy above ~10 GeV during propagation from sources at cosmological distances. This results in a redshift- and energy-dependent attenuation of the gamma-ray flux of extragalactic sources such as blazars and Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs). The Large Area Telescope onboard Fermi detects a sample of gamma-ray blazars with redshift up to z~3, and GRBs with redshift up to z~4.3. Using photons above 10 GeV collected by Fermi over more than one year of observations for these sources, we investigate the effect of gamma-ray flux attenuation by the EBL. We place upper limits on the gamma-ray opacity of the Universe at various energies and redshifts, and compare this with predictions from well-known EBL models. We find that an EBL intensity in the optical-ultraviolet wavelengths as great as predicted by the baseline model of Stecker et al. (2006) can be ruled out with high confidence.
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