We present the second catalog of high-energy γ -ray sources detected by the Large Area Telescope (LAT), the primary science instrument on the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope (Fermi), derived from data taken during the first 24 months of the science phase of the mission, which began on 2008 August 4. Source detection is based on the average flux over the 24 month period. The second Fermi-LAT catalog (2FGL) includes source location regions, defined in terms of elliptical fits to the 95% confidence regions and spectral fits in terms of power-law, exponentially cutoff power-law, or log-normal forms. Also included are flux measurements in five energy bands and light curves on monthly intervals for each source. Twelve sources in the catalog are modeled as spatially extended. We provide a detailed comparison of the results from this catalog with those from the first Fermi-LAT catalog (1FGL). Although the diffuse Galactic and isotropic models used in the 2FGL analysis are improved compared to the 1FGL catalog, we attach caution flags to 162 of the sources to indicate possible confusion with residual imperfections in the diffuse model. The 2FGL catalog contains 1873 sources detected and characterized in the 100 MeV to 100 GeV range of which we consider 127 as being firmly identified and 1171 as being reliably associated with counterparts of known or likely γ -ray-producing source classes.
We present the fourth Fermi Large Area Telescope catalog (4FGL) of γ-ray sources. Based on the first eight years of science data from the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope mission in the energy range from 50MeV to 1TeV, it is the deepest yet in this energy range. Relative to the 3FGL catalog, the 4FGL catalog has twice as much exposure as well as a number of analysis improvements, including an updated model for the Galactic diffuse γ-ray emission, and two sets of light curves (one-year and two-month intervals). The 4FGL catalog includes 5064 sources above 4σ significance, for which we provide localization and spectral properties. Seventy-five sources are modeled explicitly as spatially extended, and overall, 358 sources are considered as identified based on angular extent, periodicity, or correlated variability observed at other wavelengths. For 1336 sources, we have not found plausible counterparts at other wavelengths. More than 3130 of the identified or associated sources are active galaxies of the blazar class, and 239 are pulsars.
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