Potential PeVatron supernova remnant G106.3+2.7 seen in the highest-energy gamma rays
| Autor: | Yu-Lei Chen, Y. Yamamoto, N. Hotta, X. L. Qian, Hsiao-Chi Lu, Jian Huang, J. Shao, M. Shibata, H. Nakada, Masaki Nishizawa, X. J. Bi, M. Takita, Yi Zhang, Q. B. Gou, C. F. Feng, Y. Ko, L. Xue, Xu Chen, Yongjun Bao, J. S. Liu, L. L. Jiang, Kun Fang, Zicai Yang, Huaguang Wang, T. Ohura, Kazuoki Munakata, L. K. Ding, Haibing Hu, K. Kasahara, W. J. Li, Y. Yokoe, W. Takano, W. Kihara, Xuan Zhang, Labaciren, H. H. He, K. Kawata, Ying Zhang, Z. Y. Feng, B. Liu, Shi-Ping Zhao, W. Y. Chen, S. Ozawa, Jia Zhang, S. Torii, Y. Zhang, H. Nanjo, S. W. Cui, Takeshi Saito, J. Fang, A. Shiomi, Donghong Chen, Qi Gao, M. Amenomori, L. M. Zhai, Yang Guo, H. M. Zhang, X. X. Zhou, Z. T. He, H. Sugimoto, Danzengluobu, Y. H. Tan, Y. Q. Guo, T. L. Chen, Chihiro Kato, H. Y. Jia, H. J. Li, Y. Q. Lou, H. R. Wu, H. B. Jin, C. X. Liu, Wenwei Liu, M. Ohnishi, A. F. Yuan, Cirennima, S. Udo, Y. Katayose, Shigeaki Kato, Y. Nakamura, N. Tateyama, Harufumi Tsuchiya, M. Sakata, Gui-Ming Le, H. B. Hu, Masayoshi Kozai, Y. H. Lin, K. Hibino, Ang Li, X. B. Qu, X. R. Meng, Zhaoyang Feng, Zhaxisangzhu, T. K. Sako, X. Y. Zhang, Minghui Liu |
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| Rok vydání: | 2021 |
| Předmět: |
Physics
High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE) Astrophysics::High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena Gamma ray FOS: Physical sciences Astronomy and Astrophysics Cosmic ray Astrophysics Electron Synchrotron law.invention Particle acceleration Pulsar law Atomic nucleus Physics::Accelerator Physics High Energy Physics::Experiment Supernova remnant Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena |
| DOI: | 10.48550/arxiv.2109.02898 |
| Popis: | Cosmic rays (protons and other atomic nuclei) are believed to gain energies of petaelectronvolts (PeV) and beyond at astrophysical particle accelerators called 'PeVatrons' inside our Galaxy. Although a characteristic feature of a PeVatron is expected to be a hard gamma-ray energy spectrum that extends beyond 100 teraelectronvolts (TeV) without a cutoff, none of the currently known sources exhibits such a spectrum due to the low maximum energy of accelerated cosmic rays or insufficient detector sensitivity around 100 TeV. Here we report the observation of gamma-ray emission from the supernova remnant G106.3+2.7 above 10 TeV. This work provides flux data points up to and above 100 TeV and indicates that the very-high-energy gamma-ray emission above 10 TeV is well correlated with a molecular cloud rather than the pulsar PSR J2229+6114. Regarding the gamma-ray emission mechanism of G106.3+2.7, this morphological feature appears to favor a hadronic origin via the {\pi}0 decay caused by accelerated relativistic protons over a leptonic one via the inverse-Compton scattering by relativistic electrons. Furthermore, we point out that an X-ray flux upper limit on the synchrotron spectrum would provide important information to firmly establish the hadronic scenario as the mechanism of particle acceleration at the source. Comment: Published in Nature Astronomy |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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