Fermi LAT Discovery of Extended Gamma-Ray Emissions in the Vicinity of the HB 3 Supernova Remnant
Abstract
We report the discovery of extended gamma-ray emission measured by the Large Area Telescope (LAT) onboard the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope in the region of the supernova remnant (SNR) HB 3 (G132.7+1.3) and the W3 II complex adjacent to the southeast of the remnant. W3 is spatially associated with bright 12CO (J = 1-0) emission. The gamma-ray emission is spatially correlated with this gas and the SNR. We discuss the possibility that gamma rays originate in interactions between particles accelerated in the SNR and interstellar gas or radiation fields. The decay of neutral pions produced in nucleon-nucleon interactions between accelerated hadrons and interstellar gas provides a reasonable explanation for the gamma-ray emission. The emission from W3 is consistent with irradiation of the CO clouds by the cosmic rays accelerated in HB 3.
- Publication:
-
The Astrophysical Journal
- Pub Date:
- February 2016
- DOI:
- 10.3847/0004-637X/818/2/114
- arXiv:
- arXiv:1601.01407
- Bibcode:
- 2016ApJ...818..114K
- Keywords:
-
- acceleration of particles;
- cosmic rays;
- gamma rays: ISM;
- ISM: individual objects: HB 3;
- W3;
- ISM: supernova remnants;
- Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
- E-Print:
- Corresponding authors: H. Katagiri and K. Yoshida. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1108.1833