2021/04/30 by M. Amenomori, Y. W. Bao, X. J. Bi +92 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #astro-ph.HE
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.126.141101
published as Phys. Rev. Lett. 126, 141101 (2021) · Accepted for publication in the Physical Review Letters
arxiv created 2021/05/17 · arxiv updated 2021/05/18
We report, for the first time, the long-awaited detection of diffuse gamma rays with energies between 100 TeV and 1 PeV in the Galactic disk. Particularly, all gamma rays above 398 TeV are observed apart from known TeV gamma-ray sources and compatible with expectations from the hadronic emission scenario in which gamma rays originate from the decay of π0's produced through the interaction of protons with the interstellar medium in the Galaxy. This is strong evidence that cosmic rays are accelerated beyond PeV energies in our Galaxy and spread over the Galactic disk.