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

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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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© 2017 The American Astronomical Society. Artículo firmado por 381 autores. We gratefully acknowledge financial support from the following agencies and organizations: Ministerio de Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación Productiva (MinCyT), Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica (CNEA), Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET), Argentina; State Committee of Science of Armenia, Armenia; Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq), Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (FAPERJ), Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP), Brasil; Croatian Science Foundation, Croatia; Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports, MEYS LE13012, LG14019, 7AMB14AR005, and the Czech Science Foundation grant 14-17501S, Czech Republic; Ministry of Higher Education and Research, CNRS-INSU and CNRS-IN2P3, CEA-Irfu, ANR, Regional Council Ile de France, Labex ENIGMASS, OSUG2020 and OCEVU, France; Max Planck Society, BMBF, DESY, Helmholtz Association, Germany; Department of Atomic Energy, Department of Science and Technology, India; Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF), Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN), MIUR, Italy; ICRR, University of Tokyo, JSPS, Japan; Netherlands Research School for Astronomy (NOVA), Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO), Netherlands; The Bergen Research Foundation, Norway; Ministry of Science and Higher Education, the National Centre for Research and Development and the National Science Centre, Poland; Slovenian Research Agency, Slovenia; MINECO support through the National R + D + I, Subprograma Severo Ochoa, CDTI funding plans and the CPAN and MultiDark Consolider-Ingenio 2010 program, Spain; Swedish Research Council, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Sweden; Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF), Ernest Boninchi Foundation, Switzerland; Durham University, Leverhulme Trust, Liverpool University, University of Leicester, University of Oxford, Royal Society, Science and Technologies Facilities Council, UK; U.S. National Science Foundation, U.S. Department of Energy, Argonne National Laboratory, Barnard College, University of California, University of Chicago, Columbia University, Georgia Institute of Technology, Institute for Nuclear and Particle Astrophysics (INPAC-MRPI program), Iowa State University, Washington University McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences, USA. The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement no. 262053. We thank S. Katsuda for providing the original XMMNewton image.
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