Evidence of X-ray Synchrotron Emission from Electrons Accelerated to 40 TeV in the Supernova Remnant Cassiopeia A

Details Evidence of X-ray Synchrotron Emission from Electrons Accelerated to 40 TeV in the Supernova Remnant Cassiopeia A Evidence of X-ray Synchrotron Emission from Electrons Accelerated to 40 TeV in the Supernova Remnant Cassiopeia A

1997-07-09

arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/9707110v1

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

10 pages of text, 3 figures, accepted for Astrophys. J. Letters

Scientific paper

10.1086/310878

We present the 2-60 keV spectrum of the supernova remnant Cassiopeia A measured using the Proportional Counter Array and the High Energy X-ray Timing Experiment on the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer satellite. In addition to the previously reported strong emission-line features produced by thermal plasmas, the broad-band spectrum has a high-energy "tail" that extends to energies at least as high as 120 keV. This tail may be described by a broken power law that has photon indices of 1.8 +0.5/-0.6 and 3.04 +0.15/-0.13 and a break energy of 15.9 +0.3/-0.4 keV. We argue that the high-energy component, which dominates the spectrum above about 10 keV, is produced by synchrotron radiation from electrons that have energies up to at least 40 TeV. This conclusion supports the hypothesis that Galactic cosmic rays are accelerated predominantly in supernova remnants.

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