Helena Ren (China/Spain)
helena.ren @ mpi-hd.mpg.de
Very high energy and ultra high energy gamma-ray emission from the Galactic Centre
Detected cosmic rays reach energies over PeV (corresponding to the ‘knee’ in the cosmic ray spectrum), which means that PeV particle accelerators (‘PeVatrons’) exist inside our galaxy. One of the potential PeVatron candidate is the Galactic Centre of the Milky Way. Gamma-rays are produced in interactions of the accelerated particles. Thus, by analysing this radiation we are able to estimate the energy, in order of magnitudes, of the involved accelerated particles and as such can be used to trace cosmic particle acceleration and propagation.
We aim to analyse the very high energy (> 100 GeV) gamma-ray radiation coming from the central region of the galaxy detected by the High Energy Stereoscopic System (HESS) in order to model its emission. This work will take into account the different elements in this region, including the super massive black hole Sagittarius A*, the central molecular zone, the Fermi bubbles, a possible Dark Matter annihilation component, etc.
With this model, we will simulate predictions of gamma-ray emission from the Galactic Centre at very high energy and ultra high energy (> 100 TeV) detectable by the Southern Wide-field Gamma-ray Observatory (SWGO). We can then test if different emission scenarios and astrophysical hypotheses consistent with the HESS data, can be differentiated with SWGO.
Supervisor: Jim Hinton (MPIK)
