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2021•Proceedings of 37th International Cosmic Ray Conference — PoS(ICRC2021)Open access

Particle Acceleration in the Cygnus Superbubble

B. Hona, A. U. Abeysekara, Andrea Albert, Ruben Jose Alfaro, César Álvarez, Juan de Dios Álvarez Romero, José Roberto Ángeles Camacho, Juan Carlos Arteaga Velázquez, Arun Babu Kollamparambil, D. Avila Rojas, H. A. Ayala Solares, Rishi Pramod Babu, Vardan Baghmanyan, Ahron S. Barber, J. Becerra González, Ernesto Belmont-Moreno, S. BenZvi, David Berley, Chad Brisbois, Karen Salomé Caballero-Mora, Tomás Capistrán, Alberto Carramiñana, S. Casanova, Oscar Chaparro-Amaro, Umberto Cotti, Jorge Cotzomi, Sara Coutiño de León, E. De la Fuente, Cederik León de León, Lorenzo Diaz, R. Díaz Hernández, Juan Carlos Díaz Vélez, B. L. Dingus, Mora Durocher, M. A. DuVernois, R. W. Ellsworth, Kristi Engel, María Catalina Espinoza Hernández, Kwok Lung Fan, Mateo Fernandez Alonso, Brian Fick, Henrike Fleischhack, Jorge Luis Flores, Nissim Illich Fraija, Diego Garcia Aguilar, J. A. García-González, Jose Luis García-Luna, Guillermo García–Torales, Fernando Garfias, Gwenael Giacinti, Hazal Goksu, M. M. González, Jordan A. Goodman, James P. Harding, Sergio Hernández Cadena, Ian Herzog, J. A. Hinton, Dezhi Huang, F. Hueyotl‐Zahuantitla, C. M. Hui, Brian Humensky, Petra Hüntemeyer, A. Iriarte, A. Jardin-Blicq, Hannah Jhee, Vikas Joshi, David B Kieda, Gerd J. Kunde, S. Kunwar, Alejandro Lara, Jason Lee, William H. Lee, D. Lennarz, H. León Vargas, Jim Linnemann, Anna Lia Longinotti, R. López-Coto, G. Luis-Raya, Joe Lundeen, K. Malone, V. Marandon, Oscar M Martinez, Israel Martinez Castellanos, Humberto Martínez Huerta, J. Martínez-Castro, J. Matthews, Julie McEnery, P. Miranda-Romagnoli, Jorge Antonio Morales Soto, Eduardo Moreno Barbosa, Miguel A. Mostafá, Amid Nayerhoda, Lukas Nellen, Michael Newbold, Mehr Un Nisa, R. Noriega-Papaqui, Laura Olivera-Nieto, N. Omodei, Alison Peisker, Yunior Pérez Araujo, Eucario Gonzalo Pérez Pérez, Chang Dong Rho, C. Rivière, Daniel Rosa-Gonzalez, Edna Ruiz-Velasco, James L. Ryan, Humberto Ibarguen Salazar, Francisco Salesa Greus, Ana María Barraza Sandoval, M. Schneider, Harm Schoorlemmer, José Serna-Franco, Gus Sinnis, Andrew James Smith, R. W. Springer, P. Surajbali, I. Taboada, Meghan Tanner, Kirsten Tollefson, Ibrahim Daniel Torres, Ramiro Torres Escobedo, Rhiannon M. Turner, F. Ureña-Mena, Luis Villaseñor, Xiaojie Wang, Ian James Watson, Thomas Weisgarber, Felix Werner, Elijah Job Willox, J. Wood, G. B. Yodh, Arnulfo Zepeda, Hao Zhou

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Abstract

The Cygnus Cocoon is the first gamma-ray superbubble powered by a massive stellar association, the OB2 association. It was postulated that the combined effects of the stellar wind of the massive type O stars of the OB2 association can accelerate the cosmic rays to PeV energy in the Cocoon. The conclusive proof of acceleration to PeV energy in the Cocoon will identify the stellar association as a PeV cosmic-ray accelerator. However, the Cocoon has been previously studied only up to 10 TeV. In this contribution, using 1343 days of High Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) observatory data, we present the morphological and spectral study of the Cocoon above 1 TeV to beyond 100 TeV. The analysis at higher TeV energies reveals a softer spectrum compared to the GeV gamma-ray observation. This result suggests that either the accelerator’s efficiency decreases significantly around hundreds of TeV, or after being accelerated, the highest-energy protons escape the region. The study above 10 TeV presented here demonstrates how CR accelerators operate in these extreme energies and how particle transport impacts high-energy emission.

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The Cygnus Cocoon is the first gamma-ray superbubble powered by a massive stellar association, the OB2 association. It was postulated that the combined effects of the stellar wind of the massive type O stars of the OB2 association can accelerate the cosmic rays to PeV energy in the Cocoon. The conclusive proof of acceleration to PeV energy in the Cocoon will identify the stellar association as a PeV cosmic-ray accelerator. However, the Cocoon has been previously studied only up to 10 TeV. In this contribution, using 1343 days of High Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) observatory data, we present the morphological and spectral study of the Cocoon above 1 TeV to beyond 100 TeV. The analysis at higher TeV energies reveals a softer spectrum compared to the GeV gamma-ray observation. This result suggests that either the accelerator’s efficiency decreases significantly around hundreds of TeV, or after being accelerated, the highest-energy protons escape the region. The study above 10 TeV presented here demonstrates how CR accelerators operate in these extreme energies and how particle transport impacts high-energy emission.

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Available abstract

The Cygnus Cocoon is the first gamma-ray superbubble powered by a massive stellar association, the OB2 association. It was postulated that the combined effects of the stellar wind of the massive type O stars of the OB2 association can accelerate the cosmic rays to PeV energy in the Cocoon. The conclusive proof of acceleration to PeV energy in the Cocoon will identify the stellar association as a PeV cosmic-ray accelerator. However, the Cocoon has been previously studied only up to 10 TeV. In this contribution, using 1343 days of High Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) observatory data, we present the morphological and spectral study of the Cocoon above 1 TeV to beyond 100 TeV. The analysis at higher TeV energies reveals a softer spectrum compared to the GeV gamma-ray observation. This result suggests that either the accelerator’s efficiency decreases significantly around hundreds of TeV, or after being accelerated, the highest-energy protons escape the region. The study above 10 TeV presented here demonstrates how CR accelerators operate in these extreme energies and how particle transport impacts high-energy emission.

Key concepts: Cosmic ray, Physics, Superbubble, Cherenkov radiation, Particle acceleration, Observatory, Acceleration, Astrophysics

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