GLAST and Suzaku: Study on Cosmic-Ray Acceleration and Interaction in the Cosmos

Abstract

The Gamma-Ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST) is an international and multi-agency mission scheduled for launch in the fall of 2007. The Large Area Telescope (LAT), the primary instrument of the mission, will survey the high energy sky found to be very dynamic and surprisingly diverse by its predecessor the Energetic Gamma Ray Experiment Telescope (EGRET). GLAST-LAT will have a much improved sensitivity when compared with EGRET and extend the higher energy coverage to ∼300 GeV. The insrument is now mounted on the spacecraft and undergoing a suite of pre-flight tests. Data analysis software has been tried out by collaborators in two rounds of “Data Challenges” using simulated observations including backgrounds. The instrument performance and observational data on selected sources presented here have been obtained through the Data Challenges in the collaborative efforts. There are features in the GLAST-LAT observation possibly unfamiliar to X-ray astronomers: 1) GLAST will operate mostly in the survey mode; 2) the foreground objects (gas, dust, and star-light) become gamma-ray sources; 3) multiple sources will be “confused” because of the wide point-spread-function. The last two features will pose a challenge for analysis on extended Galactic sources such as supernova remnants and pulsar wind nebulae: multi-wavelength study with X-ray instruments like Suzaku and atmospheric Chrenkov telescopes will become essential to dig out the underlying physics.