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(Ballet) The advantage I see in band-limited fluxes is that they are approximately independent.
In addition, your scheme introduces a confusion in the user's mind, because the main flux > 100 MeV that we provide (FLUX100) is NOT directly comparable to those integral fluxes. It is NOT obtained by selecting photons above 100 MeV, but is simply a representation of the source flux obtained by fitting the entire spectral range, adjusting the spectral index.
If we adopt your scheme, then we must go all the way, add a FLUX30 column which will be used for the full range, obtain FLUX100 from events > 100 MeV only, and adjust the spectral index (when it is possible) in all 'bands'. Then all the 'bands' will have the same meaning.
(Digel) Well, I actually did have in mind that the main flux >100 MeV could be compared with the fluxes for the other integral energy ranges, but I can see that the only use of presenting fluxes for different energy ranges is if they are fit separately. Otherwise a power-law fit contains all of the information.
The disadvantage of band-limited fluxes is that for many (or maybe most) sources they will also be quite statistics limited. I have not tried simulating spectra and making fits for these narrow energy ranges to see how limited we will be, but I guess that somebody should.
So, how about 30-100, 100-300, 300-1000, 1000-3000, and >3000 MeV? (I'm revealing some EGRET heritage in preferring these ranges to ranges of 0.5 in log~10~(E). What about going down to 20 MeV?
5. Flux_History
(Ballet) Did anybody study what was the best energy interval (in particular the lower boundary) to look for variability? Is 100 MeV indeed the best trade-off between number of source photons and number of background photons plus contamination by other sources ?
(Digel) This has not been studied, to my knowledge. Certainly 100 MeV is not the best in terms of being able to distinguish sources. Quoting fluxes for the range >100 MeV, though, is common.
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