Likelihood Methods for the Detection and Characterization of Gamma-ray
  Pulsars with the Fermi Large Area Telescope
  The sensitivity of the Large Area Telescope (LAT) aboard the Fermi Gamma-ray
Space Telescope allows detection of thousands of new gamma-ray sources and
detailed characterization of the spectra and variability of bright sources.
Unsurprisingly, this increased capability leads to increased complexity in data
analysis. Likelihood methods are ideal for connecting models with data, but the
computational cost of folding the model input through the multi-scale
instrument response function is appreciable. Both interactive analysis and
large projects---such as analysis of the full gamma-ray sky---can be
prohibitive or impossible, reducing the scope of the science possible with the
LAT. To improve on this situation, we have developed pointlike, a software
package for fast maximum likelihood analysis of LAT data. It is interactive by
design and its rapid evaluation of the likelihood facilitates exploratory and
large-scale, all-sky analysis. We detail its implementation and validate its
performance on simulated data. We demonstrate its capability for interactive
analysis and present several all-sky analyses. These include a search for new
gamma-ray sources and the selection of LAT sources with pulsar-like
characteristics for targeted radio pulsation searches. We conclude by
developing sensitive periodicity tests incorporating spectral information
obtained from pointlike.
