The Fermi Summer School emphasizes the analysis of data from the Fermi instruments through lectures and hands-on workshops. Students spend time working directly with experts in instrumentation, analysis, theory and modeling to develop and extend their own research projects. Topics cover much of the gamma-ray band ranging from keV-MeV transients seen with Fermi's GBM to the highest energies observed by the LAT and the very high energies observed by ground-based gamma-ray telescopes. This year's school will be held at the University of Delaware Conference Center in Lewes, Delaware, from May 28 to June 7, 2024.
Material will be aimed at graduate students and post-doctoral researchers. Topics will include particle acceleration and gamma-ray production mechanisms; space-based and ground-based gamma-ray instrumentation; spectral, spatial, and time-based analysis of gamma-ray data; modeling and interpretation of gamma-ray data; and astrophysical source classes such as AGN, GRBs, Galactic pulsars and binary systems, supernova remnants, and pulsar wind nebulae as well as searches for dark matter and new physics.
The software necessary for the tutorials (such as the Fermitools) are distributed in the FermiBottle Docker Container, a fully-functional, self-contained analysis environment. Please go through the Summer School Checklist to make sure the container is functioning correctly.
On this page
Schedule
Go directly to Week 1 or Week 2. All times are in Eastern Daylight Time (UTC−04:00).
See our Code of Conduct and COVID-19 guidelines.
Week 1
| Tues, May 28 | Wed, May 29 | Thurs, May 30 | Fri, May 31 | Sat, June 1 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8:00 | Breakfast | Breakfast | Breakfast | Breakfast | Breakfast |
| 9:00 | Welcome and Introductions - Liz | Intro to Fermi LAT - Liz | Intro to Fermi GBM - Cori Fletcher | GBM Science - Cori | |
| 10:00 | Intro to the Fermi Mission and Sky - Liz Hays | ||||
| 11:00 | Break | Break | Break | Break (Photo!) | Break |
| 11:30 | Intro to Maximum Likelihood - Matthew Kerr | Student Talks / 1 Slide Summaries | |||
| 12:30 | Lunch | Lunch | Lunch | Lunch | Lunch |
| 1:30 | Getting started with Fermi: Tools and Resources - Joe Eggen, Joe Asercion, Alex Reustle, Nestor Mirabal (remote), Don Horner (remote) | Getting Started with Likelihood Analysis - Liz, Joe, Matthew fermi-summer-school Github repository - See README file for instructions to download files for the analysis | Next Steps with Likelihood - Liz | ||
| 4:45 | End of the Day Tag-up | End of the Day Tag-up | End of the Day Tag-up | End of the Day Tag-up | End of the Day Tag-up |
| Bike rental pick-up - leave by 4:30 | Crab Feast |
Week 2
| Mon, June 3 | Tues, June 4 | Wed, June 5 | Thurs, June 6 | Fri, June 7 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8:00 | Breakfast | Breakfast | Breakfast | Breakfast | Breakfast |
| 9:00 | 9:00 -9:30 Pack up. Feedback Form | ||||
| 10:00 | |||||
| 11:00 | Break | Break | Break | Break | Break |
| 11:30 | Student Talks / 1 Slide Summaries | Student Talks / 1 Slide Summaries | Complete packing up and return bikes. | ||
| 12:30 | Lunch | Lunch | Lunch | Lunch | Lunch |
| 1:30 | Free Afternoon | ||||
| 4:45 | End of the Day Tag-up | End of the Day Tag-up | End of the Day Tag-up | ||
Student Talks and 1 Slide Summary Schedule
Friday, May 31
Saturday, June 1
Monday, June 3
Tuesday, June 4
Wednesday, June 5
Thursday, June 6
Group Photos
Supporting Material
- Primary announcements will be sent out via an e-mail list.
- Secondary announcements, interaction between sessions. instructor-student, and student-student communication will be handled via Slack. Instructions on joining the Summer School Slack will be sent to attendees by e-mail.
- This confluence page will be the home for the schedule as well as the presentation and supporting materials.
- There are a number of video tutorials for Fermi data analysis already available. You can also find tutorials posted on the FSSC's Data Analysis section.
- Presentation and material for Josh Wood's presentation on GRB analysis
Interesting repositories for Fermi analysis
- FermiBottle - a fully-functional, self-contained analysis environment used in the Summer School
- Summer School Github Repository containing Jupyter notebooks used during the Summer School
- fermiPy and documentation
Stay up-to-date with the gamma-ray sky
- List of the currently available data products at the FSSC - Catalogs and lightcurve products in addition to links to data archives
- Public List of LAT-Detected Gamma-Ray Pulsars - continuously updated list of confirmed gamma-ray pulsars
- 2nd LAT Pulsar Catalog - covers the first 3 years of data (includes timing models)
- Pulsar ephemerides for published sources - hosted at the FSSC data access website and lists contacts who are timing LAT pulsars in radio
- LAT Gamma-ray Pulsar Timing Models
- Find Fermi publications
- Fermi-LAT publications page
- List of rapid communications from the LAT team
- Table of Fermi GBM gamma-ray bursts
- Fermi Gamma-ray Coordinates Network (GCN) notices
Additional Resources for gamma-ray astronomy and astrostatistics
- From the Handbook of X-ray and Gamma-ray Astrophysics:
- Source naming schemes and catalogs:
- General considerations
- Most gamma-ray sources are objects outside the solar system
- On YAML (yml files)
Things to Do in Lewes
- Take the ferry to Cape May.
- Hire kayaks (Don't forget sun screen!).
- If the weather's good, go to the beach! Lewes Beach is fine, or there's a beach on the ocean-side in Cape Henlopen State Park. (Don't forget sun screen!)
- Visit Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge (Don't forget bug repellent)
- Visit the Zwaanendael Museum
- Visit the US Lightship Overfalls (located just off of Pilottown Rd):
- Biking and hiking trails