Discovery of gamma-ray emission from the supernova remnant Kes 17 with Fermi Large Area Telescope

TL;DR

This paper reports the discovery of GeV gamma-ray emission from supernova remnant Kes 17 using Fermi LAT data, indicating it as a potential cosmic-ray acceleration site.

Contribution

First detection of GeV gamma-ray emission from Kes 17, linking it to cosmic-ray acceleration with multi-wavelength evidence.

Findings

Kes 17 detected with ~12 sigma significance in 1-20 GeV range.

Gamma-ray spectrum fits a power-law with photon index ~2.4.

Supports Kes 17 as a candidate cosmic-ray accelerator.

Abstract

We report the discovery of GeV emission at the position of supernova remnant Kes 17 by using the data from the Large Area Telescope on board the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. Kes 17 can be clearly detected with a significance of ~12 sigma in the 1 - 20 GeV range. Moreover, a number of gamma-ray sources were detected in its vicinity. The gamma-ray spectrum of Kes 17 can be well described by a simple power-law with a photon index of ~ 2.4. Together with the multi-wavelength evidence for its interactions with the nearby molecular cloud, the gamma-ray detection suggests that Kes 17 is a candidate acceleration site for cosmic-rays.