English

Low X-ray emission challenges supernovae remnants as the source of cosmic-ray electrons

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena 2014-04-22 v1

Abstract

The X-ray synchrotron emission of each of the young supernova-remnants (SNRs) SN1006, Kepler, Tycho, RCW86 and Cas A, is roughly given by νLν1045erg/t\nu L_{\nu}\sim 10^{45}\rm{erg}/t, where tt is the remnant's age. The electrons emitting the X-ray emission cool fast, implying that the X-ray emission is calorimetric and equal to half of the cosmic ray (CR) electron acceleration efficiency (per logarithmic interval of particle energies, at multi TeV energies). Assuming Sedov-Taylor expansion, the resulting CR electron yield per SNR is estimated to be E2dNe/dE6νLνt1046ergE^2dN_e/dE\approx 6\nu L_{\nu}t \sim 10^{46}\rm erg. This is about two orders of magnitudes below the required amount for explaining the observed electron CRs at E10GeVE\sim 10\rm GeV. Possible resolutions are 1. a soft acceleration spectrum allowing much more energy at E10GeVE\sim 10\rm GeV compared to E10TeVE\sim 10\rm TeV, 2. an increased acceleration efficiency at later phases of the SNR evolution (unlikely), or 3. SNRs are not the source of CR electrons.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1404.4924,
  title  = {Low X-ray emission challenges supernovae remnants as the source of cosmic-ray electrons},
  author = {Boaz Katz},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1404.4924},
  year   = {2014}
}

Comments

4 pages, 1 figure