Explosive Dispersal Outflows as a New Class of Fermi Gamma-Ray Sources: The Case of DR21

Abstract: We report the first detection of gamma-ray emission from an explosive dispersal outflow in the Milky Way, revealing a new source class of high-energy emission. Using 15 years of Fermi-LAT data in the 0.2 $-$ 500 GeV range, we detect a significant ($ &gt; 35\sigma $) $\gamma$-ray emission spatially coincident with the DR21 outflow, located at a distance of 1.5 kpc in the Cygnus-X star-forming region. The spectrum follows a power-law plus an exponential cutoff model with a spectral index $\Gamma = 2.08\pm0.02$ and $E_{\rm c} = 10089 \pm 2963$~MeV, integrating which we estimate a total $\gamma$-ray luminosity $$L_{\gamma} \simeq (2.17\pm 0.15) \times 10<sup>{35}$$ erg s$<sup>{-1}$ in the $0.1-500$ GeV band. This $\gamma$-ray emission is spatially coincident with additional multiwavelength data, including allWISE mid-IR and regions of dense gas. By comparing the observed $\gamma$-ray luminosity to the estimated kinetic energy of the outflow inferred from prior studies of DR21, we find that $\leq 15\%$ of the kinetic power of the outflow goes into particle acceleration. Our findings demonstrate that explosive dispersal outflows can contribute significantly to the diffuse $\gamma$-ray background of the Galaxy, highlighting their importance as particle accelerators in star-forming environments.