Fermi LAT measurements of diffuse gamma-ray emission: results at the first-year milestone

Abstract

For more than one year the Fermi Large Area Telescope has been surveying the gamma-ray sky from 20 MeV to more than 300 GeV with unprecedented statistics and angular resolution. One of the key science targets of the Fermi mission is diffuse gamma-ray emission. Galactic interstellar gamma-ray emission is produced by interactions of high-energy cosmic rays with the interstellar gas and radiation field. We review the most important results on the subject obtained so far: the non-confirmation of the excess of diffuse GeV emission seen by EGRET, the measurement of the gamma-ray emissivity spectrum of local interstellar gas, the study of the gradient of cosmic-ray densities and of the X(CO)=N(H2)/W(CO) ratio in the outer Galaxy. We also catch a glimpse at diffuse gamma-ray emission in the Large Magellanic Cloud. These results allow the improvement of large-scale models of Galactic diffuse gamma-ray emission and new measurements of the extragalactic gamma-ray background.Comment: Contribution to the Workshop SciNeGHe 2009/Gamma-ray Physics in the LHC era (Assisi - Italy, Oct. 7-9 2009); 10 pages, 6 figure