Discovery of very-high-energy γ-rays from the Galactic Centre ridge

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Abstract
The source of Galactic cosmic rays (with energies up to 1015 eV) remains unclear, although it is widely believed that they originate in the shock waves of expanding supernova remnants1,2. At present the best way to investigate their acceleration and propagation is by observing the γ-rays produced when cosmic rays interact with interstellar gas3. Here we report observations of an extended region of very-high-energy (> 1011 eV) γ-ray emission correlated spatially with a complex of giant molecular clouds in the central 200 parsecs of the Milky Way. The hardness of the γ-ray spectrum and the conditions in those molecular clouds indicate that the cosmic rays giving rise to the γ-rays are likely to be protons and nuclei rather than electrons. The energy associated with the cosmic rays could have come from a single supernova explosion around 104 years ago.
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