A Gamma-ray Emitting Collisional Ring Galaxy System in our Galactic Neighborhood
arxiv(2024)
摘要
The astrophysical γ-ray photons carry the signatures of the violent
phenomena happening on various astronomical scales in our Universe. This
includes supernova remnants, pulsars, and pulsar wind nebulae in the Galactic
environment and extragalactic relativistic jets associated with active galactic
nuclei (AGN). However, ∼30% of the -ray sources detected with the
Fermi Large Area Telescope lack multiwavelength counterpart association,
precluding us from characterizing their origin. Here we report, for the first
time, the association of a collisional ring galaxy system in our Galactic
neighborhood (distance ∼10 Mpc), formed as a consequence of a smaller
`bullet' galaxy piercing through a larger galaxy, as the multi-frequency
counterpart of an unassociated γ-ray source 4FGL J1647.5-5724. The
system, also known as "Kathryn's Wheel", contains two dwarf irregular galaxies
and an edge-on, late-type, spiral galaxy surrounded by a ring of star-forming
knots. We utilized observations taken from the Neil Gehrels Swift observatory,
Rapid ASKAP Continuum Survey, SuperCOSMOS Hα Survey, Dark Energy Survey,
and Visible MultiObject Spectrograph at Very Large Telescope to ascertain the
association with 4FGL J1647.5-5724 and to explore the connection between the
star-forming activities and the observed γ-ray emission. We found that
star-formation alone cannot explain the observed γ-ray emission, and
additional contribution likely from the pulsars/supernova remnants or buried
AGN is required. We conclude that arcsecond/sub-arcsecond-scale observations of
this extraordinary γ-ray emitting galaxy collision will be needed to
resolve the environment and explore the origin of cosmic rays.
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