Gamma rays from Centaurus A
- Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Mumbai 400 076 (India)
Centaurus A, the cosmic ray accelerator a few Mpc away from us, is possibly one of the nearest sources of extremely high energy cosmic rays. We investigate whether the gamma ray data currently available from Centaurus A in the GeV-TeV energy band can be explained with only proton-proton interactions. We show that for a single power law proton spectrum, mechanisms of {gamma}-ray production other than proton-proton interactions are needed inside this radio-galaxy to explain the gamma ray flux observed by EGRET, upper limits from HESS/CANGAROO-III and the correlated extremely energetic cosmic ray events observed by the Pierre Auger experiment. In future, with better {gamma}-ray data, and simultaneous observation with {gamma}-ray and cosmic ray detectors, it will be possible to carry out such studies on different sources in more detail.
- OSTI ID:
- 22156659
- Journal Information:
- Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, Vol. 2008, Issue 06; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 1475-7516
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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