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Title: Detection of the Small Magellanic Cloud in gamma-rays with  Fermi /LAT

Journal Article · · Astronomy and Astrophysics
 [1]
  1. Naval Research Lab. (NRL), Washington, DC (United States); et al.

Context. The flux of gamma rays with energies greater than 100 MeV is dominated by diffuse emission coming from cosmic-rays (CRs) illuminating the interstellar medium (ISM) of our Galaxy through the processes of Bremsstrahlung, pion production and decay, and inverse-Compton scattering. The study of this diffuse emission provides insight into the origin and transport of cosmic rays. Aims. We searched for gamma-ray emission from the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) in order to derive constraints on the cosmic-ray population and transport in an external system with properties different from the Milky Way. Methods. We analysed the first 17 months of continuous all-sky observations by the Large Area Telescope (LAT) of the Fermi mission to determine the spatial distribution, flux and spectrum of the gamma-ray emission from the SMC. We also used past radio synchrotron observations of the SMC to study the population of CR electrons specifically. Results. We obtained the first detection of the SMC in high-energy gamma rays, with an integrated >100 MeV flux of (3.7 ± 0.7) × 10-8 ph cm-2 s-1, with additional systematic uncertainty of ≤16%. The emission is steady and from an extended source ~3° in size. It is not clearly correlated with the distribution of massive stars or neutral gas, nor with known pulsars or supernova remnants, but a certain correlation with supergiant shells is observed. Conclusions. The observed flux implies an upper limit on the average CR nuclei density in the SMC of ~15% of the value measured locally in the Milky Way. The population of high-energy pulsars of the SMC may account for a substantial fraction of the gamma-ray flux, which would make the inferred CR nuclei density even lower. The average density of CR electrons derived from radio synchrotron observations is consistent with the same reduction factor but the uncertainties are large. From our current knowledge of the SMC, such a low CR density does not seem to be due to a lower rate of CR injection and rather indicates a smaller CR confinement volume characteristic size.

Research Organization:
SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (SLAC), Menlo Park, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE
Contributing Organization:
Fermi LAT Collaboration
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-76SF00515
OSTI ID:
1357514
Journal Information:
Astronomy and Astrophysics, Vol. 523; ISSN 0004-6361
Publisher:
EDP SciencesCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 73 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Cited By (21)

Starburst and post-starburst high-redshift protogalaxies: The feedback impact of high energy cosmic rays journal June 2019
GeV OBSERVATIONS OF STAR-FORMING GALAXIES WITH THE FERMI LARGE AREA TELESCOPE journal August 2012
FERMI LARGE AREA TELESCOPE SECOND SOURCE CATALOG journal March 2012
FERMI LARGE AREA TELESCOPE THIRD SOURCE CATALOG journal June 2015
Star-forming galaxies as the origin of diffuse high-energy backgrounds: gamma-ray and neutrino connections, and implications for starburst history journal September 2014
A search for boron in damped Lyα systems journal August 2013
Cosmic ray feedback in the FIRE simulations: constraining cosmic ray propagation with GeV γ-ray emission journal July 2019
Wimp searches with gamma rays in the Fermi era: Challenges, methods and results journal December 2015
Modeling CO, CO 2 , and H 2 O Ice Abundances in the Envelopes of Young Stellar Objects in the Magellanic Clouds journal February 2018
A Multiline Study of a High-mass Young Stellar Object in the Small Magellanic Cloud with ALMA: The Detection of Methanol Gas at 0.2 Solar Metallicity journal July 2018
Evidence for Cosmic-Ray Escape in the Small Magellanic Cloud Using Fermi Gamma Rays journal October 2018
Evidence of AGN Activity in the Gamma-Ray Emission from Two Starburst Galaxies journal October 2019
The Circinus Galaxy Revisited with 10 yr Fermi -LAT Data journal November 2019
Modeling CO, CO 2 and H 2 O Ice Abundances in the Envelopes of Young Stellar Objects in the Magellanic Clouds journal March 2017
Star-forming galaxies as the origin of diffuse high-energy backgrounds: Gamma-ray and neutrino connections, and implications for starburst history text January 2014
WIMP searches with gamma rays in the Fermi era: challenges, methods and results text January 2015
Modeling CO, CO$_2$ and H$_2$O ice abundances in the envelopes of young stellar objects in the Magellanic Clouds text January 2018
A multiline study of a high-mass young stellar object in the Small Magellanic Cloud with ALMA: The detection of methanol gas at 0.2 solar metallicity text January 2018
Evidence for Cosmic-Ray Escape in the Small Magellanic Cloud using Fermi Gamma-rays text January 2018
Cosmic ray feedback in the FIRE simulations: constraining cosmic ray propagation with GeV gamma ray emission text January 2018
Starburst and post-starburst high-redshift protogalaxies: The feedback impact of high energy cosmic rays text January 2019

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