The Large Area Telescope on the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope Mission

W. B. Atwood , A. A. Abdo , Markus Ackermann , B. Anderson , Magnus Axelsson , Luca Baldini , Jean Ballet (1) , D. L. Band , Guido Barbiellini , J. Bartelt , D. Bastieri , B. M.Baughman , K. Bechtol , D. Bédérède (2) , F. Bellardi , R. Bellazzini , B. Berenji , G. F.Bignami , D. Bisello , E. Bissaldi , R. D.Blandford , E. D.Bloom , J. R.Bogart , E. Bonamente , J. Bonnell , A. W.Borgland , A. Bouvier , J. Bregeon , A. Brez , M. Brigida , Pascal Bruel (3) , T. H.Burnett , G. Busetto , G. A.Caliandro , R.A. Cameron , P. A. Caraveo , S. Carius , P. Carlson , J. M.Casandjian (1) , E. Cavazzuti , M. Ceccanti , C. Cecchi , E. Charles , A. Chekhtman , C. C.Cheung , J. Chiang , R. Chipaux (2) , A. N. Cillis , S. Ciprini , R. Claus , J. Cohen-Tanugi (4) , S. Condamoor , J. Conrad , R. Corbet , L. Corucci , L. Costamante , S. Cutini , D.S. Davis , D. Decotigny , M. Deklotz , C.D. Dermer , A. de Angelis , S.W. Digel , E. Do Couto E Silva , P.S. Drell , R. Dubois , D. Dumora (5) , Y. Edmonds , D. Fabiani , C. Farnier (4) , C. Favuzzi , D.L. Flath , P. Fleury (3) , W.B. Focke , S. Funk , P. Fusco , F. Gargano , D. Gasparrini , N. Gehrels , F.-X. Gentit (2) , S. Germani , B. Giebels (3) , N. Giglietto , P. Giommi , F. Giordano , T. Glanzman , G. Godfrey , I.A. Grenier (1) , M.-H. Grondin (5) , J.E. Grove , L. Guillemot (5) , S. Guiriec (4) , G. Haller , A.K. Harding , P.A. Hart , E. Hays , S.E. Healey , M. Hirayama , L. Hjalmarsdotter , R. Horn , G. Johannesson , G. Johansson , A. S.Johnson , R. P.Johnson , T. J.Johnson , W. N.Johnson , T. Kamae , H. Katagiri , J. Kataoka , A. Kavelaars , N. Kawai , H. Kelly , M. Kerr , W. Klamra , Jürgen Knödlseder (6) , M. L. Kocian , N. Komin (1, 4) , F. Kuehn , M. Kuss , D. Landriu (1) , L. Latronico , B. Lee , S.-H. Lee , M. Lemoine-Goumard (5) , A.M. Lionetto , F. Longo , F. Loparco , B. Lott (5) , M.N. Lovellette , P. Lubrano , G.M. Madjeski , A. Makeev , B. Marangelli , M.M. Massai , M.N. Mazziotta , J.E. Mcenery , N. Menon , C. Meurer , P.F. Michelson , M. Minuti , N. Mirizzi , W. Mitthumsiri , T. Mizuno , A.A. Moiseev , C. Monte , M.E. Monzani , E. Moretti , A. Morselli , I.V. Moskalenko , S. Murgia , T. Nakamori , S. Nishino , P.L. Nolan , J.P. Norris , E. Nuss (4) , M. Ohno , T. Ohsugi , N. Omodei , E. Orlando , J.F. Ormes , A. Paccagnella , D. Paneque , J.H. Panetta , D. Parent (5) , M. Pearce , M. Pepe , A. Perazzo , M. Pesce-Rollins , P. Picozza , L. Pieri , M. Pinchera , F. Piron (4) , T.A. Porter , L. Poupard (1) , S. Raino , R. Rando , E. Rapposelli , M. Razzano , A. Reimer , O. Reimer , T. Reposeur (5) , L. C. Reyes , S. Ritz , L.S. Rochester , A.Y. Rodriguez , R.W. Romani , M. Roth , J.J. Russell , F. Ryde , S. Sabatini , H.F-W. Sadrosinski , D. Sanchez (3) , A. Sander , L. Sapozhinkov , P.M. Saz Parkinson , J.D. Scargle , T.L. Schalk , G. Scolieri , G. Sgro , G.H. Share , M. Shaw , T. Shimokawabe , C. Shrader , A. Sierpowska-Bartosik , E.J. Siskind , D.A. Smith (5) , P.D. Smith , G. Spandre , P. Spinelli , Jean-Luc Starck (1) , T. E. Stephens , M.S. Strickman , A.W. Strong , D.J. Suson , H. Tajima , H. Takahashi , T. Takahashi , T. Tanaka , A. Tenze (1) , S. Tether , J.B. Thayer , J.G. Thayer , D.J. Thompson , L. Tibaldo , O. Tibolla , D.F. Torres , G. Tosti , A. Tramacere , M. Turri , T.L. Usher , N. Vilchez (6) , V. Vitale , P. Wang , K. Watters , B. L. Winer , K.S. Wood , T. Ylinen , M. Ziegler

1 AIM (UMR7158 / UMR_E_9005 / UM_112) - Astrophysique Interprétation Modélisation
2 IRFU - Institut de Recherches sur les lois Fondamentales de l'Univers
3 LLR - Laboratoire Leprince-Ringuet
4 LPTA - Laboratoire de Physique Théorique et Astroparticules
5 CENBG - Centre d'Etudes Nucléaires de Bordeaux Gradignan
6 CESR - Centre d'étude spatiale des rayonnements

(Abridged) The Large Area Telescope (Fermi/LAT, hereafter LAT), the primary instrument on the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope (Fermi) mission, is an imaging, wide field-of-view, high-energy gamma-ray telescope, covering the energy range from below 20 MeV to more than 300 GeV. This paper describes the LAT, its pre-flight expected performance, and summarizes the key science objectives that will be addressed. On-orbit performance will be presented in detail in a subsequent paper. The LAT is a pair-conversion telescope with a precision tracker and calorimeter, each consisting of a 4x4 array of 16 modules, a segmented anticoincidence detector that covers the tracker array, and a programmable trigger and data acquisition system. Each tracker module has a vertical stack of 18 x,y tracking planes, including two layers (x and y) of single-sided silicon strip detectors and high-Z converter material (tungsten) per tray. Every calorimeter module has 96 CsI(Tl) crystals, arranged in an 8 layer hodoscopic configuration with a total depth of 8.6 radiation lengths. The aspect ratio of the tracker (height/width) is 0.4 allowing a large field-of-view (2.4 sr). Data obtained with the LAT are intended to (i) permit rapid notification of high-energy gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) and transients and facilitate monitoring of variable sources, (ii) yield an extensive catalog of several thousand high-energy sources obtained from an all-sky survey, (iii) measure spectra from 20 MeV to more than 50 GeV for several hundred sources, (iv) localize point sources to 0.3 - 2 arc minutes, (v) map and obtain spectra of extended sources such as SNRs, molecular clouds, and nearby galaxies, (vi) measure the diffuse isotropic gamma-ray background up to TeV energies, and (vii) explore the discovery space for dark matter.

Domaines: Instrumentation et méthodes pour l'astrophysique [astro-ph.IM]; Phénomènes cosmiques de haute energie [astro-ph.HE]

W. B. Atwood, A. A. Abdo, Markus Ackermann, B. Anderson, Magnus Axelsson, et al.. The Large Area Telescope on the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope Mission. The Astrophysical Journal, 2009, 697, pp.1071-1102. ⟨10.1088/0004-637X/697/2/1071⟩. ⟨in2p3-00378934⟩