Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope

Searching for Variability in the Gamma-ray Sky using the Fermi All-sky Variability Analysis (FAVA)

Daniel Kocevski
Rolf Buehler, and Marco Ajello on behalf of the Fermi LAT collaboration

Abstract:

Ongoing observations by the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) have shown that the gamma-ray sky is populated by variable sources whose activity varies on timescales as short as a fraction of a second (gamma-ray bursts, pulsars), to days (Crab nebula, Novae), or even years (blazars). The Fermi All-sky Variability Analysis (FAVA) was designed to efficiently search for variable sources over a wide range of energy bands and timescales. We review the capabilities of the FAVA tool and present preliminary results of a variability seach on 3 hour time scales above 50 MeV made possible through the use of the new capabilities of the pass 8 event selection.