Searches for Angular Extension in High Latitude Fermi-LAT Sources
Abstract
We report on the Fermi High-Latitude Extended Sources Catalog (FHES), a comprehensive search for spatially extended gamma-ray sources at high Galactic latitudes based on data from the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT). While the majority of high-latitude LAT sources are extragalactic blazars that appear point-like within the LAT angular resolution, there are several physics scenarios that predict the existence of populations of spatially extended sources. If Dark Matter (DM) consists of Weakly Interacting Massive Particles, the annihilation or decay of these particles in subhalos of the Milky Way would appear as a population of unassociated gamma-ray sources with finite angular extent. Gamma-ray emission from blazars could also be extended (so-called pair halos) due to the deflection of electron-positron pairs in the intergalactic magnetic field (IGMF). The pairs are produced in the absorption of gamma rays in the intergalactic medium and subsequently up-scatter photons of background radiation fields to gamma-ray energies. Measurement of pair halos could provide constraints on the strength and coherence length scale of the IGMF. We report on new extended source candidates found in the FHES as well as constraints on extended emission from point-like sources and discuss the implications of these results in the context of searches for both DM subhalos and IGMF-induced pair halos.
- Publication:
-
AAS/High Energy Astrophysics Division #16
- Pub Date:
- August 2017
- Bibcode:
- 2017HEAD...1610638C