Long-term study of the gamma-ray emission of Cygnus X-3 with MAGIC and Fermi-LAT

TL;DR

This study analyzes 130 hours of MAGIC and Fermi-LAT data to investigate gamma-ray emission from Cygnus X-3, setting the most stringent upper limits at TeV energies and exploring its potential as a PeV particle accelerator.

Contribution

It provides the largest TeV dataset for Cygnus X-3 and offers new upper limits, enhancing understanding of its gamma-ray emission and system properties.

Findings

No significant TeV gamma-ray detection was made.

Fermi-LAT fluxes align with previous observations.

MAGIC upper limits are the most restrictive to date at TeV energies.

Abstract

Cygnus X-3 is a microquasar composed of a compact object of unknown nature closely orbiting around a Wolf-Rayet star. The particularities of this source make it a unique case among microquasars. This fact, together with its recent establishment as a PeV particle accelerator, makes Cygnus X-3 a very interesting target for the investigation of the physical processes leading to gamma-ray production. In this work, the TeV and GeV gamma-ray emission of Cygnus X-3 is studied in order to determine its origin and constrain the properties of the system. For that purpose, a point-like analysis of 130 h of data taken with the MAGIC telescopes between 2013 and 2024 was performed, which represents the largest available sample for Cygnus X-3 at $\sim$TeV energies. Additionally, contemporary data from Fermi-LAT were also analysed to better contextualize the MAGIC observations. For a more detailed investigation of the source physics, the data were divided into three subsets according to the flaring state of the source and orbital phase. No significant detection of Cygnus X-3 is found between 0.1 and 7 TeV for any of the datasets, and differential and integral flux upper limits are reported over the long-term monitoring of the source. The Fermi-LAT fluxes can be considered compatible with previous results, taking into account the different data samples used across studies. The MAGIC upper limits presented in this work represent the most constraining ones up to date at $\sim$TeV energies. An eventual detection of Cygnus X-3 at these energies would significantly constrain the source properties, and is not unreasonable to expect given that the source has already been detected in both the GeV and PeV regimes during flaring states. Further observations of Cygnus X-3 at energies above tens of GeV would be valuable for this purpose.