Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics
Scientific paper
2001-07-27
Astrophys.J. 558 (2001) 739
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
41 pages, 9 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ in September
Scientific paper
10.1086/322470
We present the results of a joint spectral analysis of RXTE PCA, ASCA SIS, and ROSAT PSPC data of the supernova remnant SN 1006. This work represents the first attempt to model both the thermal and nonthermal X-ray emission over the entire X-ray energy band from 0.12 to 17 keV. The thermal flux is described by a nonequilibrium ionization model with an electron temperature kT = 0.6 keV, an ionization timescale n0t = 9 x 10^9 s / cm^3, and a relative elemental abundance of silicon that is 10-18 times larger than the solar abundance. The nonthermal X-ray spectrum is described by a broken power law model with low- and high-energy photon indices Gamma_1 = 2.1 and Gamma_2 = 3.0, respectively. Since the nonthermal X-ray spectrum steepens with increasing energy, the results of the present analysis corroborate previous claims that the nonthermal X-ray emission is produced by synchrotron radiation. We argue that the magnetic field strength is significantly larger than previous estimates of about 1 x 10^-5 G and arbitrarily use a value of 4 x 10^-5 G to estimate the parameters of the cosmic-ray electron, proton, and helium spectra of the remnant. The results for the ratio of the number densities of protons and electrons (R = 160 at 1 GeV), the total energy in cosmic rays (E_cr = 1 x 10^50 ergs), and the spectral index of the electrons at 1 GeV (Gamma_e = 2.14 +/- 0.12) are consistent with the hypothesis that Galactic cosmic rays are accelerated predominantly in the shocks of supernova remnants. Yet, the remnant may or may not accelerate nuclei to energies as high as the energy of the "knee," depending on the reason why the maximum energy of the electrons is only 10 TeV.
Allen Glenn E.
Gotthelf Eric Van
Petre Rob
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