The supernova remnant SN 1006 as a Galactic particle accelerator
arXiv:2208.14491 · doi:10.1038/s41467-022-32781-4
Abstract
The origin of cosmic rays is a pivotal open issue of high-energy astrophysics. Supernova remnants are strong candidates to be the Galactic factory of cosmic rays, their blast waves being powerful particle accelerators. However, supernova remnants can power the observed flux of cosmic rays only if they transfer a significant fraction of their kinetic energy to the accelerated particles, but conclusive evidence for such efficient acceleration is still lacking. In this scenario, the shock energy channeled to cosmic rays should induce a higher post-shock density than that predicted by standard shock conditions. Here we show this effect, and probe its dependence on the orientation of the ambient magnetic field, by analyzing deep X-ray observations of the Galactic remnant of SN 1006. By comparing our results with state-of-the-art models, we conclude that SN 1006 is an efficient source of cosmic rays and obtain an observational support for the quasi-parallel acceleration mechanism.
Published in Nature Communications. The published version of the paper, including supplementary material, is freely available online here https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-32781-4 or as a PDF here https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-32781-4.pdf
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Cited by in corpus (8)
- Discovery of a shock-compressed magnetic field in the north-western rim of the young supernova remnant RX J1713.7-3946 with X-ray polarimetry
- SRG/eROSITA and XMM-Newton observations of Vela Jr
- Hadronic versus leptonic origin of gamma-ray emission from supernova remnants
- Evidence for thermal X-ray emission from the synchrotron dominated shocks in Tycho's supernova remnant
- Plasma heating and particle acceleration in collisionless shocks through astrophysical observations
- Criteria for ion acceleration in laboratory magnetized quasi-perpendicular collisionless shocks: when are 2D simulations enough?
- Hadronic particle acceleration in the supernova remnant SN 1006 as traced by Fermi-LAT observations
- X-ray polarization in SN 1006 southwest shows spatial variations and differences with the radio band