Search

Dark matter is today one of the most intriguing but so far unresolved issues in physics. Many extensions of the Standard Model of particle physics predict a stable Weakly Interacting Massive Particle (WIMP) that may annihilate directly into two gamma-rays. If the WIMPs are non-relativistic, the gamma-rays from this channel will have an energy equal to the mass of the WIMP. The signature caused by this annihilation is a spectral line, smeared out only by the energy resolution of the detector. The signal would be a “smoking gun” for dark matter, since no other astrophysical source should be able to produce it. We present here the preliminary results from the search for a dark matter line on a limited data set from the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT), the main instrument onboard the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, which was successfully launched on June 11, 2008. The Fermi-LAT is a pair-conversion detector for gamma-rays with an energy range from 20 MeV to 300 GeV and has an unprecedented resolution and sensitivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, formerly named GLAST, is a mission in low-Earth orbit to observe gamma rays from the cosmos in the broad energy range from 20 MeV to >300 GeV, with supporting observations of gamma-ray bursts from 8 keV to 30 MeV. The telescope far surpasses previous generations in its ability to detect and localize faint gamma-ray sources, as well as its ability to see 20% of the sky at any instant and scan the entire sky on a timescale of a few hours. With its recent launch on 11 June 2008, Fermi has opened a new and exciting window on a wide variety of exotic astrophysical objects, including pulsars, black holes, active galactic nuclei, and gamma-ray bursts, and it will enable new research on such topics as the origin and circulation of cosmic rays and searches for hypothetical new phenomena such as annihilation of supersymmetric dark matter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The calibration strategy of the GLAST Large Area Telescope (LAT) combines analysis of cosmic ray data with accelerator particle beams measurements. An advanced Monte Carlo simulation of the LAT, based on the Geant4 package, was set up to reproduce the LAT response to such radiation and to benchmark the event reconstruction and the background rejection strategy before launch and during operation. To validate the LAT simulation, a massive campaign of beam tests was performed between July and November 2006, in parallel with the LAT integration and test, on the LAT Calibration Unit. This is a detector built with spare flight modules and flight-like readout electronics, which was exposed to a large variety of beams, representing the whole spectrum of the signal that will be detected by the LAT, using the CERN and the GSI accelerator facilities. Beams of photons (0 – 2.5 GeV), electrons (1 – 300 GeV), hadrons (π and p, a few GeV – 100 GeV) and ions (C; Xe, 1.5 GeV/n) were shot through the CU to measure the physical processes taking place in the detector and eventually fine-tune their description in the LAT Monte Carlo simulation. This paper describes the motivations and goals of the test runs, the many different experimental setups used, the measured detector performance and preliminary results of the LAT Monte Carlo validation. © 2007 American Institute of Physics [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Strange Quark Matter is a proposed state of hadronic matter consisting of up, down and strange quarks. If this state is stable as proposed by various phenomenological models, there will most likely be an experimentally accessible component of strange quark matter particles (strangelets) in the cosmic ray flux. In GLAST the prime signature would be a Λ particle produced in hadronic interaction of the strangelet in the tracker, decaying into a proton and pion with relatively large opening angle. In this contribution we discuss the possibility for the GLAST-LAT to measure these events and separate them from background. © 2007 American Institute of Physics [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Large Area Telescope (LAT) is one of two instruments on board the Gamma-ray Large Area Telescope (GLAST), the next generation high energy gamma-ray space telescope. The LAT contains sixteen identical towers in a four-by-four grid. Each tower contains a silicon-strip tracker and a CsI calorimeter that together will give the incident direction and energy of the pair-converting photon in the energy range 20 MeV – 300 GeV. In addition, the instrument is covered by a finely segmented Anti-Coincidence Detector (ACD) to reject charged particle background. Altogether, the LAT contains more than 864k channels in the trackers, 1536 CsI crystals and 97 ACD plastic scintillator tiles and ribbons. Here we detail some of the strategies and methods for how we are planning to monitor the instrument performance on orbit. It builds on the extensive experience gained from Integration & Test and Commissioning of the instrument on ground. © 2007 American Institute of Physics [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Large Area Telescope (LAT) is one of the two science instruments on-board the Gamma ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST). The LAT contains over 846K channels in the silicon tracker, 1536 CsI crystals in the Calorimeter and 97 tile and ribbons in the Anti-coincidence Detector. Here we provide an overview of plans and preparations for calibrating the sundry channels in the LAT. Calibrations include particle based calibrations using both protons and Galactic Cosmic Rays, as well as charge injection based calibration. These activities touch on many aspects of the LAT performance; including electronics pedestals and gains, channel noise and efficiencies, detector alignment and absolute timing. © 2007 American Institute of Physics [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST) is an observatory designed to perform gamma-ray astronomy in the energy range 20 MeV to 300 GeV, with supporting measurements for gamma-ray bursts from 10 keV to 25 MeV. GLAST will be launched at the end of 2007, opening a new and important window on a wide variety of high energy astrophysical phenomena. The main instrument of GLAST is the Large Area Telescope (LAT), which provides break-through high-energy measurements using techniques typically used in particle detectors for collider experiments. The LAT consists of 16 identical towers in a four-by-four grid, each one containing a pair conversion tracker and a hodoscopic crystal calorimeter, all covered by a segmented plastic scintillator anti-coincidence shield. The scientific return of the instrument depends very much on how accurately we know its performance, and how well we can monitor it and correct potential problems promptly. We report on a novel technique that we are developing to help in the characterization and monitoring of LAT by using the power of classification trees to pinpoint in a short time potential problems in the recorded data. The same technique could also be used to evaluate the effect on the overall LAT performance produced by potential instrumental problems. © 2007 American Institute of Physics [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]