Star clusters in the gamma-ray sky

Massive Star Clusters (SCs) have been proposed as additional contributors to Galactic Cosmic rays (CRs), to overcome the limitations of supernova remnants (SNRs) to reach the highest energy end of the CR spectrum. 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 non-negligible fraction of the Galactic CRs. Anyhow, the theoretical expectations need to be corroborated by clear observations. Despite the increasing number of detections at different energies, the contamination of other sources often makes it difficult to constrain the contribution arising from stellar winds only, unless one selects objects younger than a few million years, namely before stars start to explode inside clusters. 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.

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Publication Details

Published
2025-11-12
DOI
https://doi.org/10.22323/1.501.1390
Citations
1
Primary Topic
Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
1.87
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article

Star clusters in the gamma-ray sky

Giada Peron
1 citations
Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena
1.87
article

Star clusters in the gamma-ray sky

Giada Peron
article en
1 citations

Abstract

Massive Star Clusters (SCs) have been proposed as additional contributors to Galactic Cosmic rays (CRs), to overcome the limitations of supernova remnants (SNRs) to reach the highest energy end of the CR spectrum. 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 non-negligible fraction of the Galactic CRs. Anyhow, the theoretical expectations need to be corroborated by clear observations. Despite the increasing number of detections at different energies, the contamination of other sources often makes it difficult to constrain the contribution arising from stellar winds only, unless one selects objects younger than a few million years, namely before stars start to explode inside clusters. 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.

Openalex Percentile: Top 11%
Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena
1.87
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