Speaker
Description
Interstellar clouds can act as target material for hadronic cosmic rays; gamma rays subsequently produced through inelastic proton-proton collisions and spatially associated with such clouds can provide a key indicator of energetic particle acceleration. However, even in the case that particle acceleration proceeds up to PeV energies, the system of accelerator and nearby target material must fulfil certain conditions in order to produce a detectable gamma-ray flux. In this study, we rigorously characterise the necessary properties of both cloud and accelerator. By using available Supernova Remnant (SNR) and interstellar cloud catalogues, we produce a ranked shortlist of the most promising target systems that would be detectable by the future Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA), in the case that particles are accelerated to PeV energies in the SNR.
