Potential PeVatron supernova remnant G106.3+2.7 seen in the highest-energy gamma rays

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...

Ausführliche Beschreibung

Gespeichert in:

Bibliographische Detailangaben
Veröffentlicht in:	arXiv.org 2021-09
Hauptverfasser:	Amenomori, M, Bao, Y W, Bi, X J, Chen, D, Chen, T L, Chen, W Y, Chen, Xu, Chen, Y, Cirennima, Cui, S W, Danzengluobu, Ding, L K, Fang, J H, Fang, K, Feng, C F, Feng, Zhaoyang, Feng, Z Y, Gao, Qi, Gou, Q B, Guo, Y Q, Guo, Y Y, He, H H, He, Z T, Hibino, K, Hotta, N, Hu, Haibing, Hu, H B, Huang, J, Jia, H Y, Jiang, L, Jin, H B, Kasahara, K, Katayose, Y, Kato, C, Kato, S, Kawata, K, Kihara, W, Y Ko, Kozai, M, Labaciren, Le, G M, Li, A F, Li, H J, Li, W J, Lin, Y H, Liu, B, Liu, C, Liu, J S, Liu, M Y, Liu, W, Y -Q Lou, H Lu, Meng, X R, Munakata, K, Nakada, H, Nakamura, Y, Nanjo, H, Nishizawa, M, Ohnishi, M, Ohura, T, Ozawa, S, Qian, X L, Qu, X B, Saito, T, Sakata, M, Sako, T K, Shao, J, Shibata, M, Shiomi, A, Sugimoto, H, Takano, W, Takita, M, Tan, Y H, Tateyama, N, Torii, S, Tsuchiya, H, Udo, S, Wang, H, Wu, H R, Xue, L, Yamamoto, Y, Yang, Z, Yokoe, Y, Yuan, A F, Zhai, L M, Zhang, H M, Zhang, J L, Zhang, X, Zhang, X Y, Zhang, Y, Zhang, Yi, Zhang, Ying, Zhao, S P, Zhaxisangzhu, Zhou, X X
Format:	Artikel
Sprache:	eng
Schlagworte:	Cosmic rays Data points Elastic scattering Energy spectra Gamma emission Gamma ray astronomy Gamma rays High energy astronomy Molecular clouds Nuclei (nuclear physics) Particle acceleration Particle accelerators Physics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena Protons Pulsars Relativistic effects Supernova remnants Synchrotrons
Online-Zugang:	Volltext
Tags:	Tag hinzufügen Keine Tags, Fügen Sie den ersten Tag hinzu!

Beschreibung
Zusammenfassung:	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.
ISSN:	2331-8422
DOI:	10.48550/arxiv.2109.02898