Issue |
EPJ Web of Conferences
Volume 105, 2015
SuGAR 2015 – Searching for the Sources of Galactic Cosmic Rays
|
|
---|---|---|
Article Number | 04005 | |
Number of page(s) | 6 | |
Section | The Galaxy in Gamma Rays | |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/epjconf/201510504005 | |
Published online | 08 December 2015 |
https://doi.org/10.1051/epjconf/201510504005
The Cygnus region of the galaxy: A VERITAS perspective
Department of Physics and Astronomy, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011, USA
a e-mail: amandajw@iastate.edu
Published online: 8 December 2015
The Cygnus-X star-forming region (“Cygnus”) is the richest star-forming region within 2 kpc of Earth and is home to a wealth of potential cosmic ray accelerators, including supernova remnants, massive star clusters, and pulsar wind nebulae. Over the past five years, discoveries by several gamma-ray observatories sensitive in different energy bands, including the identification by Fermi-LAT of a potential cocoon of freshly accelerated cosmic rays, have pinpointed this region as a unique laboratory for studying the early phases of the cosmic ray life cycle. From 2007 to 2009 VERITAS, a very high energy (VHE; E > 100 GeV) observatory in southern Arizona, undertook an extensive survey of the Cygnus region from 67 to 82 degrees Galactic longitude and from −1 to 4 degrees in Galactic latitude. In the years since, VERITAS has continued to accumulate data at specific locations within the survey region. We will review the discoveries and insights that this rich dataset has already provided. We will also consider the key role that we expect these data to play in interpreting the complex multiwavelength picture we have of the Cygnus region, particularly in the vicinity of the Cygnus cocoon. As part of this discussion we will summarize ongoing studies of VERITAS data in the Cygnus region, including the development of new data analysis techniques that dramatically increase VERITAS' sensitivity to sources on scales larger than a square degree.
© Owned by the authors, published by EDP Sciences, 2015
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Current usage metrics show cumulative count of Article Views (full-text article views including HTML views, PDF and ePub downloads, according to the available data) and Abstracts Views on Vision4Press platform.
Data correspond to usage on the plateform after 2015. The current usage metrics is available 48-96 hours after online publication and is updated daily on week days.
Initial download of the metrics may take a while.