Systematic Search for X-ray Counterparts of Fermi-LAT Unassociated Sources Using Swift Observations
Abstract
We are using Swift to search for X-ray and UV/optical counterparts of unassociated Fermi gamma-ray sources, which are likely to be dominated by new gamma-ray blazars and may also harbor pulsars, as well as new exciting source classes. This Swift program includes pointed observations, with typical durations of 5 ks, of approximately 300 of the Fermi catalog sources with no currently known source association at other wavelengths. For each of the Fermi-LAT localization ellipses, Swift-XRT obtains accurate source positions ( 5 arcsec) of any detected X-ray sources, enabling new blazar identification observations and pulsation searches at both radio and gamma-ray wavelengths. Together with follow-up at other wavelengths, this study aims to reveal the nature of these unassociated and unidentified gamma-ray sources. Initial results from this program will be presented, along with information about the publicly available archive of analyzed data.
- Publication:
-
AAS/High Energy Astrophysics Division #12
- Pub Date:
- September 2011
- Bibcode:
- 2011HEAD...12.0403F