Diffuse γ-ray emission around the massive star forming region of Carina Nebula Complex

Abstract

ABSTRACT We report the Fermi Large Area Telescope (Fermi-LAT) detection of the γ-ray emission toward the massive star forming region of Carina Nebula Complex (CNC). Using the latest source catalogue and diffuse background models, we found that the GeV γ-ray emission in this region can be resolved into three different components. The GeV γ-ray emission from the central point source is considered to originate from the η Carina (η Car). We further found the diffuse GeV γ-ray emission around the CNC which can be modelled by two Gaussian discs with radii of 0.4○ (region A) and 0.75○ (region B), respectively. The GeV γ-ray emission from both the regions A and B have good spatial consistency with the derived molecular gas in projection on the sky. The GeV γ-ray emission of region A reveals a characteristic spectral shape of the pion-decay process, which indicates that the γ-rays are produced by the interactions of hadronic cosmic rays with ambient gas. The γ-rays spectrum of region B has a hard photon index of 2.12 ± 0.02, which is similar to other young massive star clusters. We argue that the diffuse GeV γ-ray emission in region A and region B likely originate from the interaction of accelerated protons in clusters with the ambient gas.