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Identifying the Origins of Gamma-Ray Emission from the Cygnus Cocoon with Swift-XRT

Presentation #110.96 in the session “Stellar/Compact (Poster)”.

Published onApr 01, 2022
Identifying the Origins of Gamma-Ray Emission from the Cygnus Cocoon with Swift-XRT

The origin of cosmic rays just below the knee is unknown but the accelerators that produce them will also produce high energy gamma-rays. TeV and GeV gamma-rays originating in the star-forming region called the Cygnus Cocoon have been detected by the HAWC Observatory and Fermi-LAT. Gamma-ray emission alone cannot unambiguously discriminate between freshly accelerated relativistic protons and electrons; however, relativistic electrons will also produce synchrotron radiation which can be used to identify the source particle. We present Swift-XRT observations of the Cygnus Cocoon and preliminary results of a search for a population of relativistic electrons. These observations are expected to detect synchrotron emission from relativistic electrons if they are present or place a strong upper limit on leptonic emission models. If synchrotron emission is ruled out, then the Cygnus Cocoon would be confirmed as a new type of PeV proton accelerator.

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