Prospects for Cherenkov Telescope Array observations of the young supernova remnant RX J1713.7-3946

We perform simulations for future Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) observations of RX J1713.7−3946, a young supernova remnant (SNR) and one of the brightest sources ever discovered in very high energy (VHE) gamma rays. Special attention is paid to exploring possible spatial (anti)correlations of gamm...

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Bibliographic Details
Authors: Arqueros Martínez, Fernando, Barrio Uña, Juan Abel, Contreras González, José Luis, Franco Peláez, Francisco Javier, López Moya, Marcos, Mirabal Barrios, Néstor, Nievas Rosillo, Mireia, Rosado Vélez, Jaime, Tejedor Álvarez, Luis Ángel
Format: article
Publication Date:2017
Country:España
Institution:Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM)
Repository:Docta Complutense
Language:English
OAI Identifier:oai:docta.ucm.es:20.500.14352/18056
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/18056
Access Level:Open access
Keyword:537
539.1
Gamma-ray emission
Diffusive shock acceleration
Magnetic-field amplification
Large-area telescope
Broad-band emission
Nonthermal x-rays
Cosmic-rays
Particle-acceleration
Molecular clouds
Srteaming instability.
Electricidad
Electrónica (Física)
Física nuclear
2202.03 Electricidad
2207 Física Atómica y Nuclear
Description
Summary:We perform simulations for future Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) observations of RX J1713.7−3946, a young supernova remnant (SNR) and one of the brightest sources ever discovered in very high energy (VHE) gamma rays. Special attention is paid to exploring possible spatial (anti)correlations of gamma rays with emission at other wavelengths, in particular X-rays and CO/H I emission. We present a series of simulated images of RX J1713.7−3946 for CTA based on a set of observationally motivated models for the gamma-ray emission. In these models, VHE gamma rays produced by high-energy electrons are assumed to trace the nonthermal X-ray emission observed by XMM-Newton, whereas those originating from relativistic protons delineate the local gas distributions. The local atomic and molecular gas distributions are deduced by the NANTEN team from CO and H I observations. Our primary goal is to show how one can distinguish the emission mechanism(s) of the gamma rays (i.e., hadronic versus leptonic, or a mixture of the two) through information provided by their spatial distribution, spectra, and time variation. This work is the first attempt to quantitatively evaluate the capabilities of CTA to achieve various proposed scientific goals by observing this important cosmic particle accelerator.

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