Related papers: The Galactic gamma-ray club
Galactic cosmic rays are believed to be accelerated at supernova remnant shocks. Gamma-ray observations of both supernova remnants and associated molecular clouds have been used in several occasions to test (so far quite successfully) this…
Diffusive TeV gamma-ray emissions have been recently discovered extending beyond the pulsar wind nebulae of a few middle-aged pulsars, implying that energetic electron/positron pairs are escaping from the pulsar wind nebulae and radiating…
Young and massive stellar clusters are a potential source of galactic cosmic rays due to at least two acceleration mechanisms. Collective stellar winds from massive stars form a wind-blown bubble with a termination shock at which particle…
Enabled by the Fermi Large Area Telescope, we now know young and recycled pulsars fill the gamma-ray sky, and we are beginning to understand their emission mechanism and their distribution throughout the Galaxy. However, key questions…
We consider nebulae which are created around binary systems containing rotation powered pulsars and companion stars with strong stellar winds. It is proposed that the stellar and pulsar winds have to mix at some distance from the binary…
Some of the very high energy (VHE) gamma-ray sources detected with the modern generation of Cherenkov telescopes have been identified with previously known X-ray binary systems. These detections demonstrate the richness of non-thermal…
Pulsar halos are extended gamma-ray structures generated by electrons and positrons escaping from pulsar wind nebulae (PWNe), considered a new class of gamma-ray sources. They are ideal indicators for cosmic-ray propagation in localized…
The stellar origin of gamma-ray bursts can be explained by the rapid release of energy in a highly collimated, extremely relativistic jet. This in turn appears to require a rapidly spinning highly magnetised stellar core that collapses into…
High-mass binaries hosting young pulsars can be powerful gamma-ray emitters. The stellar wind of the massive star in the system is expected to be clumpy. Since the high-energy emission comes from the pulsar-star wind interaction, the…
The Milky Way contains hundreds of binary systems which are known to emit in radio and X-rays, but only a handful of binaries have been observed to produce very high-energy gamma rays. In addition, the emission mechanisms which produce the…
The unexplained excess gamma-ray emission from the Milky Way's Galactic Center has puzzled astronomers for nearly a decade. Two theories strive to explain the origin of this excess: self-annihilating dark matter particles or an unresolved…
Supernova remnants have long been suggested as a class of potential counterparts to unidentified gamma-ray sources. The mechanisms by which such gamma-rays can arise may include emission from a pulsar associated with a remnant, or a variety…
Massive star clusters (SCs) have been proposed as additional contributors to Galactic Cosmic rays (CRs), to overcome the limitations of supernova remnants (SNR) to reach the highest energy end of the Galactic CR spectrum. Thanks to fast…
The Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) has revealed a mysterious extended excess of GeV gamma-ray emission around the Galactic Center, which can potentially be explained by unresolved emission from a population of pulsars, particularly…
Observations of the inner radian of the Galactic disk at very high energy (VHE) gamma-rays have revealed at least 16 new sources. Besides shell type super-nova remnants, pulsar wind nebulae (PWN) appear to be a dominant source population in…
We revisit the association of unidentified Galactic plane EGRET sources with tracers of recent massive star formation and death. Up-to-date catalogs of OB associations, SNRs, young pulsars, HII regions and young open clusters were used in…
We suggest that the collapsing core of a massive rotating star may fragment to produce two or more compact objects. Their coalescence under gravitational radiation gives the resulting black hole or neutron star a significant kick velocity,…
We consider different scenarios of collisions of compact objects (clouds, massive stars, supernova shock waves, or young pulsars) with jets in active galactic nuclei. The purpose is to find out if such collisions can become plausible…
I review the present status of ground-based gamma-ray astronomy, concentrating on the population of galactic TeV sources. A number of new telescope systems are now being completed, and promise to yield exciting new discoveries, expanding…
The nearby, 30 to 40 Myr old, starburst region of the Gould Belt has formed numerous massive stars. Within its 300 pc radius, it produces core-collapse supernovae at an enhanced rate which is shown to be 75 to 95 Myr{-1} kpc{-2}, i.e. 3 to…