Gamma-Rays from Star Forming Regions
Diego Torres
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
dtorres@igpp.ucllnl.org
Additional authors:
We present some of the results of our research program on gamma-ray emission from star forming regions. We particularly focus, in the Galactic arena, in a model of the only unidentified gamma-ray source detected by HEGRA. In this model, the source is physically related to the stellar association. It is produced by hadronic interactions between particles accelerated as the output of collective effects of the stars in Cygnus OB2 and nuclei within the winds of particular, massive stars located in the outskirts of the association. The same mechanism, which do not predict a strong EGRET counterpart, could give rise to other TeV gamma-ray sources in the Galaxy. This is analyzed through numerical simulations and stellar density maps of associations that are closer than 1 kpc from Earth. In the extragalactic arena, we mention our results concerning luminous and ultraluminous galaxies as a detectable population of gamma-ray sources. We also comment on the use of the ratio between HCN and CO luminosities as an indicator of gamma-ray observability for future gamma-ray missions, such as GLAST.
