English

Constraining cosmic-ray acceleration in the magnetospheric gaps of Sgr A*

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena 2020-08-12 v1

Abstract

Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*) is a potential VHE gamma-ray and cosmic-ray source. We examine limits to gap-type particle acceleration in the magnetosphere of Sgr A*, showing that in the current phase of activity proton acceleration to PeV energies is possible, with injection powers into the environment usually limited to several 10^{36} erg/s. Compton upscattering of ambient soft photons by gap-accelerated electrons could yield TeV emission compatible with the detected VHE points source. We explore the dependency of the results on changes in the accretion rate showing that higher stages in the past are unlikely to increase the power output unless the inner accretion flows itself changed its configuration.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2007.12189,
  title  = {Constraining cosmic-ray acceleration in the magnetospheric gaps of Sgr A*},
  author = {Grigorios Katsoulakos and Frank Rieger and Brian Reville},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2007.12189},
  year   = {2020}
}

Comments

Accepted for Publication in ApJL