VERITAS Observations of the Vicinity of the Cygnus Cocoon

TL;DR

This paper reports VERITAS gamma-ray observations near the Cygnus Cocoon, exploring cosmic ray acceleration and gamma-ray emission in the region between Cygnus OB2 and gamma-Cygni SNR, with a focus on VER J2019+407.

Contribution

It presents new gamma-ray observations of the Cygnus region, providing insights into cosmic ray acceleration near the Cygnus Cocoon and gamma-ray source VER J2019+407.

Findings

Detection of gamma-ray emission near the Cygnus Cocoon

Insights into cosmic ray acceleration mechanisms

Characterization of VER J2019+407 source

Abstract

The study of $\gamma$-ray emission from galactic sources such as supernova remnants (SNR) may provide key insights into their potential role as accelerators of cosmic rays up to the knee ($\sim 10^{15}$ eV). The VERITAS Observatory is sensitive to galactic and extragalactic $\gamma$-ray sources in the 100 GeV to 30 TeV energy range. We report here on VERITAS observations of the vicinity of the cocoon of freshly accelerated cosmic rays reported by Fermi, which lies between potential accelerators in the Cygnus OB2 association and the $\gamma$-Cygni SNR. A particular focus is placed on the source VER J2019 +407 in $\gamma$-Cygni.