Fermi LAT detection of increased gamma-ray emission from the vicinity of the Sun
ATel #3214; A. Allafort (Stanford/KIPAC), Yasuyuki T. Tanaka (ISAS/JAXA), Nicola Omodei (Stanford University), Nicola Giglietto (INFN-Bari) on behalf of the Fermi Large Area Telescope Collaboration
on 10 Mar 2011; 18:54 UT
Credential Certification: Rolf Buehler (buehler@slac.stanford.edu)
The Large Area Telescope (LAT), one of the two instruments on the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, has observed an increasing >100 MeV gamma-ray flux from a source positionally consistent with the Sun at position (RA=348.6, DEC=-5.0, J2000) detected over March 8, 2011.
The source was detected in a very high state between March 7, and March 8, 2011, the same time period during which several solar flares were detected; however there was no report for >300 keV gamma-ray emission associated with any of these flares as measured by the Fermi GBM and RHESSI spectrometers.
Because Fermi operates in an all-sky scanning mode, regular gamma-ray monitoring of this source will continue. In light of the ongoing activity of this source, we encourage multiwavelength observations. For this event the Fermi LAT contact person is Alice Allafort (allafort@stanford.edu).
The Fermi LAT is a pair conversion telescope designed to cover the energy band from 20 MeV to greater than 300 GeV. It is the product of an international collaboration between NASA and DOE in the U.S. and many scientific institutions across France, Italy, Japan and Sweden.
