Moon and quiet Sun detection with Fermi-LAT observatory

摘要

The Fermi gamma-ray space telescope is an international mission supporting two science instruments, the Gamma-Ray Burst Monitor (GBM), covering the energy range from few keV to 30 MeV, and the Large Area Telescope (LAT), a pair-conversion detector operating at energies from 30 MeV to 300GeV. The Fermi telescope was successfully launched on June 11, 2008 and has been surveying the sky in gamma rays since August 2008. During the first months of the mission, Fermi has detected high-energy gamma rays from the Moon and quiet Sun since the first weeks of data taking. This emission is produced by interactions of cosmic rays; by nucleons with the solar and lunar surface (albedo), and electrons with solar photons in the heliosphere. The heliospheric emission is produced by inverse-Compton scattering and is predicted to be extended. Both Moon and the quiet Sun was detected by EGRET on CGRO with low statistics, but Fermi is the only gamma-ray mission capable of detecting the Moon and the quiet Sun and monitoring it over the full 24th solar cycle. Here we present the analysis relative to the first months including the observation of the Moon and the Sun, the spectral analysis, the fluxes measurements and finally a comparison with models and previous detections.