1. Very-high-energy $\gamma$-ray emission from young massive star clusters in the Large Magellanic Cloud
- Author
-
Aharonian, F., Benkhali, F. Ait, Aschersleben, J., Ashkar, H., Backes, M., Martins, V. Barbosa, Batzofin, R., Becherini, Y., Berge, D., Bernlöhr, K., Böttcher, M., Bolmont, J., de Lavergne, M. de Bony, Borowska, J., Brose, R., Brown, A., Brun, F., Bruno, B., Burger-Scheidlin, C., Casanova, S., Celic, J., Cerruti, M., Chand, T., Chandra, S., Chen, A., Chibueze, J., Chibueze, O., Cotter, G., Cristofari, P., Devin, J., Djannati-Ataï, A., Djuvsland, J., Dmytriiev, A., Egberts, K., Einecke, S., Feijen, K., Filipovic, M., Fontaine, G., Funk, S., Gabici, S., Gallant, Y. A., Glicenstein, J. F., Glombitza, J., Grolleron, G., Haerer, L., Heß, B., Hinton, J. A., Hofmann, W., Holch, T. L., Horns, D., Huang, Zhiqiu, Jamrozy, M., Jankowsky, F., Jung-Richardt, I., Kasai, E., Katarzyński, K., Khatoon, R., Khélifi, B., Kluźniak, W., Komin, Nu., Kosack, K., Kostunin, D., Kundu, A., Lang, R. G., Stum, S. Le, Lemière, A., Lemoine-Goumard, M., Lenain, J. -P., Leuschner, F., Mackey, J., Marandon, V., Martí-Devesa, G., Marx, R., Mehta, A., Mitchell, A., Moderski, R., Moghadam, M. O., Mohrmann, L., Montanari, A., Moulin, E., de Naurois, M., Niemiec, J., Ohm, S., Olivera-Nieto, L., Wilhelmi, E. de Ona, Ostrowski, M., Panny, S., Pensec, U., Peron, G., Pühlhofer, G., Quirrenbach, A., Ravikularaman, S., Regeard, M., Reimer, A., Reimer, O., Ren, H., Renaud, M., Reville, B., Rieger, F., Rowell, G., Rudak, B., Ruiz-Velasco, E., Sabri, K., Sahakian, V., Salzmann, H., Santangelo, A., Sasaki, M., Schäfer, J., Schüssler, F., Schutte, H. M., Sol, H., Spencer, S., Stawarz, Ł., Steinmassl, S., Steppa, C., Streil, K., Sushch, I., Taylor, A. M., Terrier, R., Tsirou, M., Tsuji, N., van Eldik, C., Vecchi, M., Venter, C., Vink, J., Wagner, S. J., White, R., Wierzcholska, A., Zacharias, M., Zdziarski, A. A., Zech, A., and Żywucka, N.
- Subjects
Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena - Abstract
The Tarantula Nebula in the Large Magellanic Cloud is known for its high star formation activity. At its center lies the young massive star cluster R136, providing a significant amount of the energy that makes the nebula shine so brightly at many wavelengths. Recently, young massive star clusters have been suggested to also efficiently produce high-energy cosmic rays, potentially beyond PeV energies. Here, we report the detection of very-high-energy $\gamma$-ray emission from the direction of R136 with the High Energy Stereoscopic System, achieved through a multicomponent, likelihood-based modeling of the data. This supports the hypothesis that R136 is indeed a very powerful cosmic-ray accelerator. Moreover, from the same analysis, we provide an updated measurement of the $\gamma$-ray emission from 30 Dor C, the only superbubble detected at TeV energies presently. The $\gamma$-ray luminosity above $0.5\,\mathrm{TeV}$ of both sources is $(2-3)\times 10^{35}\,\mathrm{erg}\,\mathrm{s}^{-1}$. This exceeds by more than a factor of 2 the luminosity of HESS J1646$-$458, which is associated with the most massive young star cluster in the Milky Way, Westerlund 1. Furthermore, the $\gamma$-ray emission from each source is extended with a significance of $>3\sigma$ and a Gaussian width of about $30\,\mathrm{pc}$. For 30 Dor C, a connection between the $\gamma$-ray emission and the nonthermal X-ray emission appears likely. Different interpretations of the $\gamma$-ray signal from R136 are discussed., Comment: 10+11 pages, 4+6 figures. Corresponding authors: L. Mohrmann, N. Komin
- Published
- 2024
- Full Text
- View/download PDF