Systematic and quantitative approach for the identification of high energy gamma-ray source populations

Abstract

A large fraction of the detections to be made by the Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST) will initially be unidentified. We argue that traditional methodological approaches to identify individuals and/or populations of $\gamma$-ray sources will encounter procedural limitations. These limitations will hamper our ability to classify source populations lying in the anticipated dataset with the required degree of confidence, particularly those for which no member has yet been convincingly detected in the predecessor experiment EGRET. Here we suggest a new paradigm for achieving the classification of $\gamma$-ray source populations based on the implementation of an a priori protocol to search for theoretically-motivated candidate sources. In order to protect the discovery potential of the sample, it is essential that such paradigm will be defined before the data is unblinded. Key to the new procedure is a statistical assessment by which the discovery of a new population can be claimed. Although we explicitly refer here to the case of GLAST, the scheme we present may be adapted to other experiments confronted with a similar problematic.

arXiv commentIn press in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. Accepted on July 12, 2005

References in corpus (6)

• A Unified Approach to the Classical Statistical Analysis of Small Signals
• EGRET upper limits on the high-energy gamma-ray emission of galaxy clusters
• Supernova remnants and gamma-ray sources
• The clustering of ultra-high energy cosmic rays and their sources
• Luminous infrared galaxies as plausible gamma-ray sources for GLAST and IACTs
• On the cross correlation between the arrival direction of ultra-high energy cosmic rays, BL Lacertae, and EGRET detections: A new way to identify EGRET sources?

Cited by in corpus (5)

• The Large Area Telescope on the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope Mission
• Fermi Large Area Telescope First Source Catalog
• XMM-Newton and ESO observations of the two unidentified gamma-ray sources 3EG J0616-3310 and 3EG J1249-8330
• A luminosity constraint on the origin of unidentified high energy sources
• Identification of high energy gamma-ray sources and source populations in the era of deep all-sky coverage