A tool to estimate the Fermi Large Area Telescope background for short-duration observations

Abstract

The proper estimation of the background is a crucial component of data analyses in astrophysics, such as source detection, temporal studies, spectroscopy, and localization. For the case of the Large Area Telescope (LAT) on board the Fermi spacecraft, approaches to estimate the background for short (less than ~one thousand seconds duration) observations fail if they ignore the strong dependence of the LAT background on the continuously changing observational conditions. We present a (to be) publicly available background-estimation tool created and used by the LAT Collaboration in several analyses of Gamma Ray Bursts. This tool can accurately estimate the expected LAT background for any observational conditions, including, for example, observations with rapid variations of the Fermi spacecraft's orientation occurring during automatic repointings.

Accepted for publication by Astroparticle Physics

References in corpus (3)

• The First Fermi LAT Gamma-Ray Burst Catalog
• Multiwavelength observations of GRB 110731A: GeV emission from onset to afterglow
• Fermi observations of high-energy gamma-ray emission from GRB 090217A

Cited by in corpus (4)

• The First Fermi LAT Gamma-Ray Burst Catalog
• Significance of an excess in a counting experiment: assessing the impact of systematic uncertainties and the case with Gaussian background
• Swift and Fermi observations of X-ray flares: the case of Late Internal Shock
• Signs of magnetic acceleration and multi-zone emission in GRB 080825C