Fermi large area telescope observations of the cosmic-ray induced γ -ray emission of the Earth’s atmosphere

We report on measurements of the cosmic-ray induced gamma-ray emission of Earth's atmosphere by the Large Area Telescope onboard the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. The LAT has observed the Earth during its commissioning phase and with a dedicated Earth-limb following observation in September...

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Veröffentlicht in:Physical review. D 2009-12, Vol.80 (12), p.122004, Article 122004
Hauptverfasser: Abdo, A. A., Ackermann, M., Ajello, M., Atwood, W. B., Baldini, L., Ballet, J., Barbiellini, G., Bastieri, D., Baughman, B. M., Bechtol, K., Bellazzini, R., Berenji, B., Bloom, E. D., Bonamente, E., Borgland, A. W., Bouvier, A., Bregeon, J., Brez, A., Brigida, M., Bruel, P., Buehler, R., Burnett, T. H., Buson, S., Caliandro, G. A., Cameron, R. A., Caraveo, P. A., Casandjian, J. M., Cecchi, C., Çelik, Ö., Charles, E., Chekhtman, A., Chiang, J., Ciprini, S., Claus, R., Cohen-Tanugi, J., Conrad, J., de Palma, F., Digel, S. W., do Couto e Silva, E., Drell, P. S., Dubois, R., Dumora, D., Farnier, C., Favuzzi, C., Fegan, S. J., Focke, W. B., Fortin, P., Frailis, M., Fukazawa, Y., Funk, S., Fusco, P., Gargano, F., Gehrels, N., Germani, S., Giebels, B., Giglietto, N., Giordano, F., Glanzman, T., Godfrey, G., Grenier, I. A., Grondin, M.-H., Grove, J. E., Guillemot, L., Guiriec, S., Hays, E., Horan, D., Hughes, R. E., Jóhannesson, G., Johnson, A. S., Johnson, T. J., Johnson, W. N., Kamae, T., Katagiri, H., Kataoka, J., Kawai, N., Kerr, M., Knödlseder, J., Kuss, M., Lande, J., Latronico, L., Lemoine-Goumard, M., Longo, F., Loparco, F., Lott, B., Lovellette, M. N., Lubrano, P., Makeev, A., Mazziotta, M. N., McEnery, J. E., Meurer, C., Michelson, P. F., Mitthumsiri, W., Mizuno, T., Monte, C., Monzani, M. E., Morselli, A., Moskalenko, I. V., Murgia, S., Nolan, P. L., Norris, J. P.
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Sprache:eng
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Zusammenfassung:We report on measurements of the cosmic-ray induced gamma-ray emission of Earth's atmosphere by the Large Area Telescope onboard the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. The LAT has observed the Earth during its commissioning phase and with a dedicated Earth-limb following observation in September 2008. These measurements yielded 6.4 x 10^6 photons with energies >100MeV and ~250hours total livetime for the highest quality data selection. This allows the study of the spatial and spectral distributions of these photons with unprecedented detail. The spectrum of the emission - often referred to as Earth albedo gamma-ray emission - has a power-law shape up to 500 GeV with spectral index Gamma = 2.79+-0.06.
ISSN:1550-7998
2470-0010
1550-2368
2470-0029
DOI:10.1103/PhysRevD.80.122004