paper

Cosmic Ray streaming from SNRs and gamma ray emission from nearby molecular clouds

arXiv:1111.2410 · doi:10.1088/0004-637X/745/2/140

Abstract

High-energy gamma ray emission has been detected recently from supernovae remnants (SNRs) and their surroundings. The existence of molecular clouds near some of the SNRs suggests that the gamma rays originate predominantly from p-p interactions with cosmic rays accelerated at a closeby SNR shock wave. Here we investigate the acceleration of cosmic rays and the gamma ray production in the cloud self-consistently by taking into account the interactions of the streaming instability and the background turbulence both at the shock front and in the ensuing propagation to the clouds. We focus on the later evolution of SNRs, when the conventional treatment of the streaming instability is valid but the magnetic field is enhanced due to either Bell's current instability and/or due to the dynamo generation of magnetic field in the precursor region. We calculate the time dependence of the maximum energy of the accelerated particles. This result is then used to determine the diffusive flux of the runaway particles escaping the shock region, from which we obtain the gamma spectrum consistent with observations. Finally, we check the self-consistency of our results by comparing the required level of diffusion with the level of the streaming instability attainable in the presence of turbulence damping. The energy range of cosmic rays subject to the streaming instability is able to produce the observed energy spectrum of gamma rays.

7 pages, 4 figures, ApJ in press

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