Shocks and Particle Acceleration in Supernova Remnants: Observational Features

Abstract

The last ten years a number of observational advances have substantially increased our knowledge of shock phenomena in supernova remnants. This progress has mainly been made possible by the recent improvements in X-ray and Gamma-ray instrumentation. It has become clear that some shell-type supernova remnants, e.g. SN 1006, have X-ray emission dominated by synchrotron radiation, proving that electrons are accelerated up to 100 TeV. This is still an order of magnitude below 3E15 eV, at which energy the ion cosmic ray spectrum at earth shows a spectral break. So one of the major goals is to prove that supernova remnants are capable of accelerating ions at least up that energy. Here I review the evidence that ions and electrons are accelerated up to energies ~100 TeV in supernova remnants, and, in addition, the recent progress that has been made in understanding the physics of collisionless shock fronts and the magnetic fields inside supernova remnants.

13 pages, 7 figures. Invited review to appear in "High Energy Studies of Supernova Remnants and Neutron Stars" (COSPAR 2002), Eds. W. Hermsen, W. Becker, Advances in Space Research, in press

References in corpus (9)

• On the magnetic fields and particle acceleration in Cas A
• Supernova remnants and gamma-ray sources
• Slow Temperature Equilibration Behind the Shock Front of SN 1006
• X-Ray Synchrotron Emitting Fe-Rich Ejecta in SNR RCW 86
• The First Measurement of Cassiopeia A's Forward Shock Expansion Rate
• No evidence yet for hadronic TeV gamma-ray emission from SNR RX J1713.7-3946
• Supernova-Remnant Origin of Cosmic Rays?
• The Identification of Infrared Synchrotron Radiation from Cassiopeia A
• Fine Structure of the Thermal and Non-Thermal X-Rays in the SN 1006 Shell

Cited by in corpus (10)

• Shocks and cold fronts in galaxy clusters
• Observational constraints on energetic particle diffusion in young SNRs: amplified magnetic field and maximum energy
• Magnetic field generation in relativistic shocks - An early end of the exponential Weibel instability in electron-proton plasmas
• The Kinematics of Kepler's Supernova Remnant as revealed by Chandra
• Spectrum and Anisotropy of Cosmic Rays at TeV-PeV-energies and Contribution of Nearby Sources
• Turbulence and particle acceleration in collisionless supernovae remnant shocks: I-Anisotropic spectra solutions
• Turbulence and particle acceleration in collisionless supernovae remnant shocks: II- Cosmic-ray transport
• An investigation into the fraction of particle accelerators among colliding-wind binaries. Towards an extension of the catalogue
• X-ray Hotspot Flares and Implications for Cosmic Ray Acceleration and Magnetic Field amplification in Supernova Remnants
• The origin of non-thermal X-ray filaments and TeV emission in young SNRs