Star clusters in the gamma ray sky and their contribution to Galactic Cosmic rays

by Dr Giada Peron (INAF Arcetri)

Thursday 29 Jan 2026, 11:30 → 12:30 Europe/Rome

Sala Jappelli (Osservatorio astronomico di Padova)

Cosmic Rays (CRs) are elementary particles that permeate the Galaxy and arrive at Earth from any directions. Their spectral energy distribution has been measured over 13 order of magnitudes but the origin of these extremely energetic particles is still debated. To investigate this issue, gamma-ray observations towards potential accelerators are needed. Gamma-ray observations from different observatories unveiled a large variety of source classes and confirmed that supernova remnants (SNRs)  are powerful CR accelerators in our Galaxy, but have difficulties in explaining all the observables related to Galactic CRs, including the energetics and the composition. Massive Star Clusters (SCs) have been proposed as additional contributors to Galactic CRs to overcome the limitations of SNRs. Thanks to fast mass losses due to the collective stellar winds, the environment around SCs is potentially suitable for particle acceleration up to PeV energies, and their energetics is enough to account for a large fraction of the Galactic CRs. I will review the results obtained with gamma-ray data towards a few massive young star clusters and discuss what implications these result have, especially concerning their contribution to the bulk of Galactic CRs and what are the prospects for observations with future facilities as the ASTRI-MiniArray and the Cherenkov Telescope Array Observatory.

Join Zoom Meeting  

 

https://unipd.zoom.us/j/82482883288?pwd=MVvmMWSGaiVrGMyAFOdyQG61OAcI7D.1

Meeting ID: 824 8288 3288 
Passcode: 072472