Four years of Fermi LAT flare advocate activity

Abstract

The Fermi Flare Advocate (also known as Gamma-ray Sky Watcher, FA-GSW) service provides for a daily quicklook analysis and review of the high-energy gamma-ray sky seen by the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT). The FA-GSW service communicates alerts for potentially new gamma-ray sources, interesting transients and flares. A weekly digest containing the highlights about the GeV gamma-ray sky is published in the web-based Fermi Sky Blog and email for special events are posted through the LAT multifrequency mailing-list. During the first 4 years of Fermi allsky survey, more than 200 Astronomical Telegrams, several alerts to the TeV Cherenkov telescopes, and target of opportunity to Swift and other observatories have been realized. This increased the rate of simultaneous multi-frequency observing campaigns and the level of international scientific cooperation. © 2012 American Institute of Physics.