Three years of Fermi GBM Earth Occultation Monitoring: Observations of Hard X-ray/Soft Gamma-Ray Sources

TL;DR

This paper presents three years of Fermi GBM Earth occultation data analysis, monitoring 209 high-energy sources and detecting 99, providing valuable insights into X-ray and gamma-ray astrophysical phenomena.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive analysis of Fermi GBM data using Earth occultation technique over three years, identifying numerous sources across different high-energy bands.

Findings

Detected 99 sources from 209 monitored over three years.

Identified sources in multiple energy bands, including 100-300 keV and 300-500 keV.

Provided continuous light curves for all catalog sources.

Abstract

The Gamma ray Burst Monitor (GBM) on board Fermi has been providing continuous data to the astronomical community since 2008 August 12. In this paper we present the results of the analysis of the first three years of these continuous data using the Earth occultation technique to monitor a catalog of 209 sources. From this catalog, we detect 99 sources, including 40 low-mass X-ray binary/neutron star systems, 31 high-mass X-ray binary neutron star systems, 12 black hole binaries, 12 active galaxies, 2 other sources, plus the Crab Nebula, and the Sun. Nine of these sources are detected in the 100-300 keV band, including seven black-hole binaries, the active galaxy Cen A, and the Crab. The Crab and Cyg X-1 are also detected in the 300-500 keV band. GBM provides complementary data to other sky-monitors below 100 keV and is the only all-sky monitor above 100 keV. Up-to-date light curves for all of the catalog sources can be found at http://heastro.phys.lsu.edu/gbm/.