Radioactive 26Al from the Scorpius-Centaurus Association

Abstract

The Scorpius-Centaurus association is the most-nearby group of massive and young stars. As nuclear-fusion products are ejected by massive stars and supernovae into the surrounding interstellar medium, the search for characteristic gamma-rays from radioactivity is one way to probe the history of activity of such nearby massive stars on a My time scale through their nucleosynthesis. 26Al decays within ~1 My, 1809 keV gamma-rays from its decay can be measured with current gamma-ray telescopes, such as INTEGRAL's gamma-ray spectrometer SPI. Following earlier 26Al gamma-ray mapping with NASA's Compton observatory, we test spatial emission skymaps of 26Al for a component which could be attributed to ejecta from massive stars in the Scorpius-Centaurus group of stars. Such a model fit of spatial distributions for large-scale and local components is able to discriminate 26Al emission associated with Scorpius-Centaurus, in spite of the strong underlying nucleosynthesis signal from the Galaxy at large. We find an 26Al signal above 5 sigma significance, which we associate with the Sco-Cen group. The observed flux of 6 *10^{-5}ph cm^{-2} s^{-1} corresponds to 1.1 *10^{-4} M_sol of 26Al. This traces the nucleosynthesis ejecta of several massive stars within the past several million years. We confirm through direct detection of radioactive 26Al the recent ejection of massive-star nucleosynthesis products from the Sco-Cen association. Its youngest subgroup in Upper Scorpius appears to dominate 26Al contributions from this association. Our 26Al signal can be interpreted as a measure of the age and richness of this youngest subgroup. We also estimate a kinematic imprint of these nearby massive-star ejecta from the bulk motion of 26Al and compare this to other indications of Scorpius-Centaurus massive-star activity .

8 pages, 7 figures; accepted for publication in A&A

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