First Results from Fermi GBM Earth Occultation Monitoring: Observations of Soft Gamma-Ray Sources Above 100 keV

TL;DR

This paper reports initial findings from Fermi GBM's Earth occultation monitoring, detecting multiple gamma-ray sources above 100 keV, demonstrating the technique's effectiveness for long-term sky observation.

Contribution

It introduces the application of Earth occultation technique with Fermi GBM for monitoring gamma-ray sources, providing preliminary results after two years of observations.

Findings

Detected 8 sources with >7 sigma significance

Crab and Cyg X-1 detected above 300 keV

Sensitivity exceeds BATSE below 25 keV and above 1.5 MeV

Abstract

The NaI and BGO detectors on the Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (GBM) on Fermi are now being used for long-term monitoring of the hard X-ray/low energy gamma-ray sky. Using the Earth occultation technique as demonstrated previously by the BATSE instrument on the Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory, GBM can be used to produce multiband light curves and spectra for known sources and transient outbursts in the 8 keV to 1 MeV energy range with its NaI detectors and up to 40 MeV with its BGO detectors. Over 85% of the sky is viewed every orbit, and the precession of the Fermi orbit allows the entire sky to be viewed every ~26 days with sensitivity exceeding that of BATSE at energies below ~25 keV and above ~1.5 MeV. We briefly describe the technique and present preliminary results using the NaI detectors after the first two years of observations at energies above 100 keV. Eight sources are detected with a significance greater than 7 sigma: the Crab, Cyg X-1, SWIFT J1753.5-0127, 1E 1740-29, Cen A, GRS 1915+105, and the transient sources XTE J1752-223 and GX 339-4. Two of the sources, the Crab and Cyg X-1, have also been detected above 300 keV.