Morphology of Young Massive Stellar Clusters with Next-Generation IACTs

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Auteurs principaux: Bonollo, Alberto, Esposito, Paolo, Giuliani, Andrea, Caraveo, Patrizia, Galanti, Giorgio, Crestan, Silvia, Rigoselli, Michela, Mereghetti, Sandro
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2025
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author Bonollo, Alberto
Esposito, Paolo
Giuliani, Andrea
Caraveo, Patrizia
Galanti, Giorgio
Crestan, Silvia
Rigoselli, Michela
Mereghetti, Sandro
author_facet Bonollo, Alberto
Esposito, Paolo
Giuliani, Andrea
Caraveo, Patrizia
Galanti, Giorgio
Crestan, Silvia
Rigoselli, Michela
Mereghetti, Sandro
contents The term PeVatron designates astrophysical objects capable of accelerating particles to PeV energies. Their nature and particle acceleration mechanisms are uncertain, but ultra-high-energy gamma rays are produced when particles accelerated by either leptonic or hadronic PeVatrons interact with the surrounding medium or radiation fields. The atmospheric air shower observatory LHAASO detected photons with energies above 100 TeV from 43 sources in the Galactic Plane, proving the existence of PeVatrons within the Milky Way. In particular, one of the detections was a 1.4 PeV photon in spatial correspondence with Cygnus OB2, providing a strong hint that young massive stellar clusters (YMSCs) can act as PeVatrons. The next-generation Cherenkov telescopes will have unprecedented energy and angular resolution. Therefore, they will be able to resolve spatially YMSCs better than LHAASO. We focused on a sample of 5 YMSCs and their environments visible from either hemisphere with the CTAO or ASTRI Mini-Array. We modeled the gamma-ray emission above 1 TeV. We devised methods for classifying YMSCs that could be detected as unidentified extended TeV sources and estimated the observational time needed to distinguish the morphology of different classes of sources. We study the morphology of the sources in our sample in order to identify the main features. We simulated observations of all sources with the instrument response function (IRF) of CTAO or ASTRI Mini-Array. We compare their emission distribution to the one of the TeV halos observed by HAWC. We parametrize their radial profiles in order to develop methodologies to classify them and to distinguish YMSCs from TeV halos based on their morphology. We expect some feature, such as the emission peak, to be key in differentiating between the two classes of objects. We then test them on a sample of sources of the first LHAASO catalog.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2509_20150
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Morphology of Young Massive Stellar Clusters with Next-Generation IACTs
Bonollo, Alberto
Esposito, Paolo
Giuliani, Andrea
Caraveo, Patrizia
Galanti, Giorgio
Crestan, Silvia
Rigoselli, Michela
Mereghetti, Sandro
High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
The term PeVatron designates astrophysical objects capable of accelerating particles to PeV energies. Their nature and particle acceleration mechanisms are uncertain, but ultra-high-energy gamma rays are produced when particles accelerated by either leptonic or hadronic PeVatrons interact with the surrounding medium or radiation fields. The atmospheric air shower observatory LHAASO detected photons with energies above 100 TeV from 43 sources in the Galactic Plane, proving the existence of PeVatrons within the Milky Way. In particular, one of the detections was a 1.4 PeV photon in spatial correspondence with Cygnus OB2, providing a strong hint that young massive stellar clusters (YMSCs) can act as PeVatrons. The next-generation Cherenkov telescopes will have unprecedented energy and angular resolution. Therefore, they will be able to resolve spatially YMSCs better than LHAASO. We focused on a sample of 5 YMSCs and their environments visible from either hemisphere with the CTAO or ASTRI Mini-Array. We modeled the gamma-ray emission above 1 TeV. We devised methods for classifying YMSCs that could be detected as unidentified extended TeV sources and estimated the observational time needed to distinguish the morphology of different classes of sources. We study the morphology of the sources in our sample in order to identify the main features. We simulated observations of all sources with the instrument response function (IRF) of CTAO or ASTRI Mini-Array. We compare their emission distribution to the one of the TeV halos observed by HAWC. We parametrize their radial profiles in order to develop methodologies to classify them and to distinguish YMSCs from TeV halos based on their morphology. We expect some feature, such as the emission peak, to be key in differentiating between the two classes of objects. We then test them on a sample of sources of the first LHAASO catalog.
title Morphology of Young Massive Stellar Clusters with Next-Generation IACTs
topic High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.20150