Sixteen Years of Gamma-Ray Discoveries and AGN Observations with Fermi-LAT

Abstract

In June 2024, the Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope (FGST) celebrated its 16th year of operations. The Fermi Large Area Telescope (Fermi-LAT) is the main instrument onboard the FGST satellite and is designed to be sensitive to γ-rays in the energy range from about 20MeV up to the TeV regime. From its launch, the Fermi-LAT has collected more than 4.53billion photon events, providing crucial information to improve our understanding of particle acceleration and γ-ray production phenomena in astrophysical sources. The most abundant in the last 4FGL-data release 4 (4FGL-DR4), most powerful and persistent γ-ray emitters in the sky are the Active Galactic Nuclei (AGNs). These sources are extremely luminous galaxy cores powered by a super massive black hole (SMBH) with a mass ranging from millions to billions of times the mass of the Sun. The ASI-SSDC, a facility of the Agenzia Spaziale Italiana (ASI), plays a pivotal role in supporting Fermi-LAT by providing the essential infrastructure for the storage, processing, and analysis of the vast amounts of data generated by the mission. As a key asset to various space missions, ASI-SSDC contributes significantly to advancing research in high-energy astrophysics and γ-ray observations.

Keywords

• active galactic nuclei
• Agenzia Spaziale Italiana—Space Science Data Center
• dark matter
• fermi—large area telescope
• gamma-rays