FAVA: Fermi All-Sky Variability Analysis Catalog of Flaring Gamma-Ray Sources

A catalog of flaring gamma-ray sources detected by the Fermi Large Area Telescope over 7.4 years, from August 2008 to January 2016. The Fermi All-sky Variability Analysis (FAVA) technique was used to search for flares in weekly time bins across two energy bands. This catalog was produced by NASA and ingested by the HEASARC in July 2017.

Use Cases

• Identify and analyze flaring gamma-ray sources based on the weekly time bin analysis.
• Study source spectra and variability across the 100-800 MeV and 0.8-300 GeV energy bands.
• Cross-match flaring sources with known gamma-ray counterparts based on positional coincidence.
• Investigate temporal clustering of flares to characterize source behavior over the 7.4-year mission period.

Strengths

• Covers a long temporal baseline of 7.4 years of Fermi mission data.
• Uses a defined detection threshold equivalent to 6 sigma (pre-trials).
• Analysis performed in two independent energy bands (100-800 MeV and 0.8-300 GeV).

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data freshness should be verified; the catalog covers data up to 2016.

Provenance

Source

NASA Fermi Science Support Center (FSSC), ingested by NASA HEASARC.

Collection Method

Analysis of data from the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope's Large Area Telescope using the FAVA photometric and likelihood analysis technique.

Time Range

Modified Julian Date 54682 to 57391 (2008-08-04 to 2016-01-04).

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 19:31:51.228073; freshness should be verified.

Geography

All-sky coverage.