Statistical Measurement of the Gamma-ray Source-count Distribution as a Function of Energy

TL;DR

This study uses statistical analysis of Fermi-LAT gamma-ray data to measure the source-count distribution and diffuse components, revealing the contribution of unresolved sources to the gamma-ray background across multiple energy bands.

Contribution

It introduces a method employing the 1-point PDF of photon counts to characterize the gamma-ray sky and measure source populations as a function of energy.

Findings

Source-count distribution follows a broken power law up to ~50 GeV.

Unresolved point sources explain over 80% of the gamma-ray background.

The method constrains the gamma-ray luminosity function and blazar spectra.

Abstract

Statistical properties of photon count maps have recently been proven as a new tool to study the composition of the gamma-ray sky with high precision. We employ the 1-point probability distribution function of 6 years of Fermi-LAT data to measure the source-count distribution dN/dS and the diffuse components of the high-latitude gamma-ray sky as a function of energy. To that aim, we analyze the gamma-ray emission in five adjacent energy bands between 1 GeV and 171 GeV. It is demonstrated that the source-count distribution as a function of flux is compatible with a broken power law up to energies of ~50 GeV. The index below the break is between 1.95 and 2.0. For higher energies, a simple power-law fits the data, with an index of 2.2^{+0.7}_{-0.3} in the energy band between 50 GeV and 171 GeV. Upper limits on further possible breaks as well as the angular power of unresolved sources are derived. We find that point-source populations probed by this method can explain 83^{+7}_{-13}% (81^{+52}_{-19}%) of the extragalactic gamma-ray background between 1.04 GeV and 1.99 GeV (50 GeV and 171 GeV). The method has excellent capabilities for constraining the gamma-ray luminosity function and the spectra of unresolved blazars.