skip to main content
OSTI.GOV title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: Observations of the Large Magellanic Cloud with Fermi

Journal Article · · Astronomy and Astrophysics
; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; more »; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; « less

Context. The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is to date the only normal external galaxy that has been detected in high-energy gamma rays. High-energy gamma rays trace particle acceleration processes and gamma-ray observations allow the nature and sites of acceleration to be studied. Aims. We characterise the distribution and sources of cosmic rays in the LMC from analysis of gamma-ray observations. Methods. We analyse 11 months of continuous sky-survey observations obtained with the Large Area Telescope aboard the Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope and compare it to tracers of the interstellar medium and models of the gamma-ray sources in the LMC. Results. The LMC is detected at 33σ significance. The integrated >100 MeV photon flux of the LMC amounts to (2.6 ± 0.2) × 10-7 ph cm-2 s-1 which corresponds to an energy flux of (1.6 ± 0.1) × 10-10 erg cm-2 s-1, with additional systematic uncertainties of 16%. The analysis reveals the massive star forming region 30 Doradus as a bright source of gamma-ray emission in the LMC in addition to fainter emission regions found in the northern part of the galaxy. The gamma-ray emission from the LMC shows very little correlation with gas density and is rather correlated to tracers of massive star forming regions. The close confinement of gamma-ray emission to star forming regions suggests a relatively short GeV cosmic-ray proton diffusion length. In conclusion, the close correlation between cosmic-ray density and massive star tracers supports the idea that cosmic rays are accelerated in massive star forming regions as a result of the large amounts of kinetic energy that are input by the stellar winds and supernova explosions of massive stars into the interstellar medium.

Research Organization:
SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (SLAC), Menlo Park, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE; National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
Contributing Organization:
The Fermi LAT Collaboration
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-76SF00515
OSTI ID:
1357572
Journal Information:
Astronomy and Astrophysics, Vol. 512; ISSN 0004-6361
Publisher:
EDP SciencesCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 112 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

References (45)

ASMOOTH: a simple and efficient algorithm for adaptive kernel smoothing of two-dimensional imaging data journal May 2006
What can GLAST say about the origin of cosmic rays in other galaxies?
  • Digel, Seth W.
  • Acceleration and transport of energetic particles observed in the heliosphere (ACE-2000 symposium), AIP Conference Proceedings https://doi.org/10.1063/1.1324358
conference January 2000
What can we learn from the Large Magellanic Cloud with GLAST? conference January 2007
FERMI /LARGE AREA TELESCOPE BRIGHT GAMMA-RAY SOURCE LIST journal June 2009
BRIGHT ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEI SOURCE LIST FROM THE FIRST THREE MONTHS OF THE FERMI LARGE AREA TELESCOPE ALL-SKY SURVEY journal July 2009
FERMI LAT OBSERVATION OF DIFFUSE GAMMA RAYS PRODUCED THROUGH INTERACTIONS BETWEEN LOCAL INTERSTELLAR MATTER AND HIGH-ENERGY COSMIC RAYS journal September 2009
SPITZER SURVEY OF THE LARGE MAGELLANIC CLOUD, SURVEYING THE AGENTS OF A GALAXY'S EVOLUTION (SAGE). IV. DUST PROPERTIES IN THE INTERSTELLAR MEDIUM journal July 2008
Cosmic rays, stellar evolution and supernova physics journal February 2004
The radial distribution of galactic gamma-rays. I - Emissivity and extent in the outer galaxy journal April 1984
Bremsstrahlung, Synchrotron Radiation, and Compton Scattering of High-Energy Electrons Traversing Dilute Gases journal April 1970
The fourth catalogue of Population I Wolf-Rayet stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud journal May 1999
Parameter estimation in astronomy through application of the likelihood ratio journal March 1979
Observation of High-Energy Cosmic Gamma Rays journal July 1968
Cosmic-ray distribution and the dynamic balance in the Large Magellanic Cloud journal June 1991
A Full‐Sky Hα Template for Microwave Foreground Prediction journal June 2003
First Results of a CO Survey of the Large Magellanic Cloud with NANTEN; Giant Molecular Clouds as Formation Sites of Populous Clusters journal December 1999
The Second Survey of the Molecular Clouds in the Large Magellanic Cloud by NANTEN. I. Catalog of Molecular Clouds journal September 2008
Galactic gamma-ray emission from pulsars journal July 1981
Diffuse gamma-ray emission from pulsars in the Large Magellanic Cloud journal May 1993
The Third EGRET Catalog of High‐Energy Gamma‐Ray Sources journal July 1999
CRATES: An All‐Sky Survey of Flat‐Spectrum Radio Sources
  • Healey, Stephen E.; Romani, Roger W.; Taylor, Gregory B.
  • The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series, Vol. 171, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1086/513742
journal July 2007
ROSAT X-ray sources in the field of the LMC: I. Total LMC gas from the background AGN spectral fits journal June 2001
Parameterization of \documentclass{aastex} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{bm} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{pifont} \usepackage{stmaryrd} \usepackage{textcomp} \usepackage{portland,xspace} \usepackage{amsmath,amsxtra} \usepackage[OT2,OT1]{fontenc} \newcommand\cyr{ \renewcommand\rmdefault{wncyr} \renewcommand\sfdefault{wncyss} \renewcommand\encodingdefault{OT2} \normalfont \selectfont} \DeclareTextFontCommand{\textcyr}{\cyr} \pagestyle{empty} \DeclareMathSizes{10}{9}{7}{6} \begin{document} \landscape $\gamma ,\, e^{\pm }$ \end{document} , and Neutrino Spectra Produced by p‐p Interaction in Astronomical Environments journal August 2006
Large scale structure of the ionized gas in the magellanic clouds journal February 1995
An H i Aperture Synthesis Mosaic of the Large Magellanic Cloud journal August 1998
A Neutral Hydrogen Survey of the Large Magellanic Cloud: Aperture Synthesis and Multibeam Data Combined
  • Kim, Sungeun; Staveley‐Smith, Lister; Dopita, Michael A.
  • The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series, Vol. 148, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.1086/376980
journal October 2003
High-mass X-ray binaries in the Magellanic Clouds journal October 2005
The Australia Telescope National Facility Pulsar Catalogue journal April 2005
Discovery of an Ultrafast X-Ray Pulsar in the Supernova Remnant N157B journal June 1998
Period-luminosity relations for type II Cepheids and their application journal August 2009
Nuclear enhancement factor in calculation of Galactic diffuse gamma-rays: A new estimate with DPMJET-3 journal June 2009
Diffuse Gamma Rays book January 2004
Prospects for exploring the local galaxies through the study of their high-energy gamma-ray emission journal December 1988
Diffuse Gamma Rays from Local Group Galaxies journal September 2001
The Araucaria Project. Determination of the Large Magellanic Cloud Distance from Late-Type Eclipsing Binary Systems. i. Ogle-051019.64-685812.3 journal May 2009
The Influence of Far-Ultraviolet Radiation on the Properties of Molecular Clouds in the 30 dor Region of the Large Magellanic Cloud journal September 2009
Production of π Mesons and Gamma Radiation in the Galaxy by Cosmic Rays journal September 1963
Inverse Compton Origin of the Hard X‐Ray and Soft Gamma‐Ray Emission from the Galactic Ridge journal July 2008
Discovery of a 50 millisecond pulsar in the Large Magellanic Cloud journal December 1984
Observations of the Large Magellanic Cloud in high-energy gamma rays journal November 1992
A new look at the large-scale H I structure of the Large Magellanic Cloud journal February 2003
A New Determination of the Extragalactic Diffuse Gamma‐Ray Background from EGRET Data journal October 2004
The distribution of cosmic-ray sources in the Galaxy, γ-rays and the gradient in the CO-to-H 2 relation journal July 2004
The detection of X-rays from the hot interstellar medium of the Large Magellanic Cloud journal June 1991
The Magellanic Clouds book August 2010

Cited By (33)

Nonthermal particles and photons in starburst regions and superbubbles journal October 2014
Fermi Large Area Telescope observations of Local Group galaxies: detection of M 31 and search for M 33 journal November 2010
Discovery of gamma-ray emission from the extragalactic pulsar wind nebula N 157B with H.E.S.S. journal August 2012
VLT/ISAAC infrared spectroscopy of embedded high-mass YSOs in the Large Magellanic Cloud: Methanol and the 3.47 μ m band journal January 2016
Deep view of the Large Magellanic Cloud with six years of Fermi -LAT observations journal January 2016
Starburst and post-starburst high-redshift protogalaxies: The feedback impact of high energy cosmic rays journal June 2019
Radiative and mechanical feedback into the molecular gas in the Large Magellanic Cloud: II. 30 Doradus journal August 2019
Akari Infrared Camera Survey of the Large Magellanic Cloud. ii. the Near-Infrared Spectroscopic Catalog journal January 2013
GeV OBSERVATIONS OF STAR-FORMING GALAXIES WITH THE FERMI LARGE AREA TELESCOPE journal August 2012
FERMI LARGE AREA TELESCOPE FIRST SOURCE CATALOG journal May 2010
FERMI LARGE AREA TELESCOPE SECOND SOURCE CATALOG journal March 2012
THE SECOND FERMI LARGE AREA TELESCOPE CATALOG OF GAMMA-RAY PULSARS journal September 2013
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
Constraining cosmic ray acceleration in young star clusters using multi-wavelength observations journal July 2018
Cosmic ray feedback in the FIRE simulations: constraining cosmic ray propagation with GeV γ-ray emission journal July 2019
Modeling CO, CO 2 , and H 2 O Ice Abundances in the Envelopes of Young Stellar Objects in the Magellanic Clouds journal February 2018
Evidence for Cosmic-Ray Escape in the Small Magellanic Cloud Using Fermi Gamma Rays journal October 2018
Identification of Blazar Candidates behind Small and Large Magellanic Clouds journal November 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
The Detection of Hot Cores and Complex Organic Molecules in the Large Magellanic Cloud journal January 2018
Modeling CO, CO 2 and H 2 O Ice Abundances in the Envelopes of Young Stellar Objects in the Magellanic Clouds journal March 2017
The Second Fermi Large area Telescope Catalog of Gamma-Ray Pulsars text January 2013
Magnetic Field Structure of the Large Magellanic Cloud from Faraday Rotation Measures of Diffuse Polarized Emission text January 2012
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
Constraining cosmic ray acceleration in young star clusters using multi-wavelength observations text January 2018
Evidence for Cosmic-Ray Escape in the Small Magellanic Cloud using Fermi Gamma-rays text January 2018
Identification of blazar candidates behind Small and Large Magellanic Clouds 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

Similar Records

Deep view of the Large Magellanic Cloud with six years of Fermi -LAT observations
Journal Article · Wed Jan 27 00:00:00 EST 2016 · Astronomy and Astrophysics · OSTI ID:1357572

What can we learn from the Large Magellanic Cloud with GLAST?
Journal Article · Thu Jul 12 00:00:00 EDT 2007 · AIP Conference Proceedings · OSTI ID:1357572

Detection of the Small Magellanic Cloud in gamma-rays with  Fermi /LAT
Journal Article · Mon Nov 01 00:00:00 EDT 2010 · Astronomy and Astrophysics · OSTI ID:1357572