English

Blazar Flaring Rates Measured with GLAST

Astrophysics 2009-11-10 v1

Abstract

We derive the minimum observing time scales to detect a blazar at a given flux level with the LAT on GLAST in the scanning and pointing modes. Based upon Phase 1 observations with EGRET, we predict the GLAST detection rate of blazar flares at different flux levels. With some uncertainty given the poor statistics of bright blazars, we predict that a blazar flare with integral flux >~ 200e-8 ph(> 100 MeV) cm^{-2} s^{-1}, which are the best candidates for Target of Opportunity pointings and extensive temporal and spectral studies, should occur every few days.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.astro-ph/0312590,
  title  = {Blazar Flaring Rates Measured with GLAST},
  author = {C. D. Dermer and B. L. Dingus},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/0312590},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

7 pages, 2 figures, in 2nd VERITAS Symposium on TeV Astrophysiscs, ed. L. Fortson and S. Swordy, in press, New Astronomy Reviews