Peta-electron volt gamma-ray emission from the Crab Nebula

Abstract

The Crab pulsar and the surrounding nebula powered by the pulsar's rotational energy through the formation and termination of a relativistic electron-positron wind is a bright source of gamma-rays carrying crucial information about this complex conglomerate. We report the detection of $\gamma$-rays with a spectrum showing gradual steepening over three energy decades, from $5\times 10^{-4}$ to $1.1$ petaelectronvolt (PeV). The ultra-high-energy photons exhibit the presence of a PeV electron accelerator (a pevatron) with an acceleration rate exceeding 15% of the absolute theoretical limit. Assuming that unpulsed $\gamma$-rays are produced at the termination of the pulsar's wind, we constrain the pevatron's size, between $0.025$ and $0.1$ pc, and the magnetic field $\approx 110\mu$G. The production rate of PeV electrons, $2.5\times 10^{36}$ erg ${\mathrm{s}}^{-1}$, constitutes 0.5% of the pulsar's spin-down luminosity, although we do not exclude a non-negligible contribution of PeV protons to the production of the highest energy $\gamma$-rays.

43 pages, 13 figures, 2 tables; Published in Science

References in corpus (16)

• Observations of the Crab Nebula with H.E.S.S
• Parametrization of gamma-ray production cross-sections for pp interactions in a broad proton energy range from the kinematic threshold to PeV energies
• Discovery of Powerful Gamma-Ray Flares from the Crab Nebula
• A radiation transfer model for the Milky-Way: I. Radiation fields and application to High Energy Astrophysics
• The observation of the Crab Nebula with LHAASO-KM2A for the performance study
• A Precise Proper Motion for the Crab Pulsar, and the Difficulty of Testing Spin-Kick Alignment for Young Neutron Stars
• Spitzer Space Telescope Infrared Imaging and Spectroscopy of the Crab Nebula
• The dust and gas content of the Crab Nebula
• Non-thermal emission from relativistic MHD simulations of PWNe: from synchrotron to inverse Compton
• Far-infrared and sub-mm observations of the Crab nebula
• Crab Nebula: five-year observation with ARGO-YBJ
• Very high energy emission as a probe of relativistic magnetic reconnection in pulsar winds
• Detection of Small Flares from the Crab Nebula with Fermi-LAT
• Detection of UHE gamma rays from the Crab Nebula: Physical Implications
• Modeling the broadest spectral band of the Crab nebula and constraining the ions acceleration efficiency
• Performance of LHAASO-WCDA and Observation of Crab Nebula as a Standard Candle

Cited by in corpus (69)

• The First LHAASO Catalog of Gamma-Ray Sources
• A tera-electronvolt afterglow from a narrow jet in an extremely bright gamma-ray burst 221009A
• The Third Fermi Large Area Telescope Catalog of Gamma-ray Pulsars
• Measurement of ultra-high-energy diffuse gamma-ray emission of the Galactic plane from 10 TeV to 1 PeV with LHAASO-KM2A
• Ultra-High-Energy Cosmic Rays: The Intersection of the Cosmic and Energy Frontiers
• The Hunt for Pevatrons: The Case of Supernova Remnants
• The High-Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) Observatory in México: The Primary Detector
• On the potential of bright, young pulsars to power ultra-high gamma-ray sources
• Observations of the Crab Nebula and Pulsar with the Large-Sized Telescope Prototype of the Cherenkov Telescope Array
• Lorentz Symmetry Violation of Cosmic Photons
• PeV emission of the Crab Nebula: constraints on the proton content in pulsar wind and implications
• Revisiting ultrahigh-energy constraints on decaying super-heavy dark matter
• The Physics of Pulsar Halos: Research Progress and Prospect
• Axion-Photon Conversion of LHAASO Multi-TeV and PeV Photons
• Where are Milky Way's Hadronic PeVatrons?
• Sensitivity of the Cherenkov Telescope Array to spectral signatures of hadronic PeVatrons with application to Galactic Supernova Remnants
• Multi-band Emission up to PeV Energy from the Crab Nebula in a Spatially Dependent Lepto-hadronic Model
• Reverberation of pulsar wind nebulae (III): Modelling of the plasma interface empowering a long term radiative evolution
• The LHAASO PeVatron bright sky: what we learned
• Neutrino Observations of LHAASO Sources: Present Constraints and Future Prospects
• Prospects for ultra-high-energy particle acceleration at relativistic shocks
• LHAASO-KM2A detector simulation using Geant4
• A proposed deep sea Neutrino Observatory in the Nanhai
• First constraints on the strength of the extragalactic magnetic field from $\gamma$-ray observations of GRB 221009A
• Astrophysical and Cosmological Searches for Lorentz Invariance Violation
• Searches for Neutrinos from LHAASO ultra-high-energy γ-ray sources using the IceCube Neutrino Observatory
• Constraints on Hadronic Contribution to LHAASO Sources with Neutrino Observations
• Interaction of a Relativistic Magnetized Collisionless Shock with a Dense Clump
• Prospect of detecting TeV halos with LHAASO: in the framework of the anisotropic diffusion model
• Observation of gamma rays up to 320 TeV from the middle-aged TeV pulsar wind nebula HESS J1849$-$000
• Study of maximum electron energy of sub-PeV pulsar wind nebulae by multiwavelength modelling
• Probing LHAASO Galactic PeVatrons through gamma-ray and neutrino correspondence
• TRAPUM search for pulsars in supernova remnants and pulsar wind nebulae -- I. Survey description and initial discoveries
• Revisiting the Chandra Observation on the Region of PSR J1809-1917: Indication of an X-ray Halo and Implication for the Origin of HESS J1809-193
• Fundamental physics with neutron stars
• Evidence for particle acceleration approaching PeV energies in the W51 complex
• Joint photon-electron Lorentz violation parameter plane from LHAASO data
• Implications of a Possible Spectral Structure of Cosmic-ray Protons Unveiled by the DAMPE
• The prediction of using LHAASO's cosmic-ray electron measurements to constrain decaying heavy dark matter
• Galactic transient sources with the Cherenkov Telescope Array Observatory
• Escape of cosmic rays from perpendicular shocks in the circumstellar magnetic field
• Mirages and Large TeV Halo-Pulsar Offsets from Cosmic Ray Propagation
• Loop Quantum Gravity effects on electromagnetic properties of charged leptons
• High dynamic range base design and characterization of an 8-inch photomultiplier tube CR365-02-2 for the LHAASO-MD experiment
• Exploring the high energy frontiers of the Milky Way with ground-based gamma-ray astronomy: PeVatrons and the quest for the origin of Galactic cosmic-rays
• Anisotropic Diffusion of $e^{\pm }$ in Pulsar Halos over Multiple Coherence of Magnetic Fields
• Comprehensive analysis on photon-electron Lorentz-violation parameter plane
• Probes for String-Inspired Foam, Lorentz, and CPT Violations in Astrophysics
• Research on the knee region of cosmic ray by using a novel type of electron-neutron detector array
• Probing the nova shock physics with future gamma-ray observations of the upcoming outburst from T Coronae Borealis
• Search for the Galactic accelerators of Cosmic-Rays up to the Knee with the Pevatron Test Statistic
• An extreme particle accelerator powered by pulsar PSR J1849-0001
• Ultra-high-energy $\gamma$-ray emission associated with the tail of a bow-shock pulsar wind nebula
• Gluon Condensation Signature in the GeV Gamma-Ray Spectra of Pulsars
• Analysis Methods for Gamma-ray Astronomy
• Propagation of anisotropic gravitational and electromagnetic waves at very high energies
• The Very Energetic Radiation Imaging Telescope Array System (VERITAS)
• The expected potential of hadronic PeVatron searches with spectral $\gamma$-ray data from the Southern Wide-field Gamma-ray Observatory
• The Potential for Hadronic Particle Acceleration in Galactic Pulsar Wind Nebulae
• Mirage Sources and Large TeV Halo-Pulsar Offsets: Exploring the Parameter Space
• How many VHE gamma-ray binaries with young pulsars can be observed?
• Dark photon constraints using the UHE gamma-ray emission from galactic sources. A Phenomenological Study
• Observation of the Crab Nebula with the Single-Mirror Small-Size Telescope stereoscopic system at low altitude
• H.E.S.S.: The High Energy Stereoscopic System
• Detectability of Supernova Remnants with the Southern Wide-field Gamma-ray Observatory
• Energy-dependent extension of the Crab Nebula as a diagnostic of ultrahigh-energy hadronic emission
• The Southern Wide-field Gamma-ray Observatory: Status and Prospects
• Towards Searching for Photons with Energies beyond the PeV Range from Galactic PeVatrons
• HAWC J0630+186 Could Not Be Powered by PSR J0630+19