@Article{HAWCCollaborationAlbert+SalesaGreus2021,
author="HAWC Collaboration (Albert, A. et al
and Salesa Greus, F.",
title="Probing the Sea of Cosmic Rays by Measuring Gamma-Ray Emission from Passive Giant Molecular Clouds with HAWC",
journal="Astrophysical Journal",
year="2021",
publisher="Iop Publishing Ltd",
volume="914",
number="2",
pages="106--14pp",
abstract="The study of high-energy gamma rays from passive giant molecular clouds (GMCs) in our Galaxy is an indirect way to characterize and probe the paradigm of the {\textquoteleft}{\textquoteleft}sea{\textquoteright}{\textquoteright} of cosmic rays in distant parts of the Galaxy. By using data from the High Altitude Water Cerenkov (HAWC) Observatory, we measure the gamma-ray flux above 1 TeV of a set of these clouds to test the paradigm. We selected high galactic latitude clouds that are in HAWC{\textquoteright}s field of view and that are within 1 kpc distance from the Sun. We find no significant excess emission in the cloud regions, nor when we perform a stacked log-likelihood analysis of GMCs. Using a Bayesian approach, we calculate 95{\%} credible interval upper limits of the gamma-ray flux and estimate limits on the cosmic-ray energy density of these regions. These are the first limits to constrain gamma-ray emission in the multi-TeV energy range (>1 TeV) using passive high galactic latitude GMCs. Assuming that the main gamma-ray production mechanism is due to proton-proton interaction, the upper limits are consistent with a cosmic-ray flux and energy density similar to that measured at Earth.",
optnote="WOS:000663912700001",
optnote="exported from refbase (https://references.ific.uv.es/refbase/show.php?record=4858), last updated on Thu, 01 Jul 2021 22:01:04 +0000",
issn="0004-637x",
doi="10.3847/1538-4357/abfc47",
opturl="https://arxiv.org/abs/2101.08748",
opturl="https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/abfc47",
language="English"
}