Non-thermal radiation from molecular clouds illuminated by cosmic rays from nearby supernova remnants

Molecular clouds are expected to emit non-thermal radiation due to cosmic ray interactions in the dense magnetized gas. Such emission is amplified if a cloud is located close to an accelerator of cosmic rays and if cosmic rays can leave the accelerator and diffusively reach the cloud. We consider the situation in which a molecular cloud is located in the proximity of a supernova remnant which is accelerating cosmic rays and gradually releasing them into the interstellar medium. We calculate the multiwavelength spectrum from radio to gamma rays which emerges from the cloud as the result of cosmic ray interactions. The total energy output is dominated by the gamma ray emission, which can exceed the emission from other bands by an order of magnitude or more. This suggests that some of the unidentified TeV sources detected so far, with no obvious or very weak counterpart in other wavelengths, might be associated with clouds illuminated by cosmic rays coming from a nearby source.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, proceedings of the "4th Heidelberg International Symposium on High Energy Gamma-Ray Astronomy" July 7-11, 2008, Heidelberg, German

Searching for galactic cosmic ray pevatrons with multi-TeV gamma rays and neutrinos

The recent HESS detections of supernova remnant shells in TeV gamma-rays confirm the theoretical predictions that supernova remnants can operate as powerful cosmic ray accelerators. If these objects are responsible for the bulk of galactic cosmic rays, then they should accelerate protons and nuclei to 10^15 eV and beyond, i.e. act as cosmic PeVatrons. The model of diffusive shock acceleration allows, under certain conditions, acceleration of particles to such high energies and their gradual injection into the interstellar medium, mainly during the Sedov phase of the remnant evolution. The most energetic particles are released first, while particles of lower energies are more effectively confined in the shell, and are released at later epochs. Thus the spectrum of nonthermal paticles inside the shell extends to PeV energies only during a relatively short period of the evolution of the remnant. For this reason one may expect spectra of secondary gamma-rays and neutrinos extending to energies beyond 10 TeV only from T \lesssim 1000 yr old supernova remnants. On the other hand, if by a chance a massive gas cloud appears in the \lesssim 100 pc vicinity of the supernova remnant, ``delayed'' multi-TeV signals of gamma-rays and neutrinos arise when the most energetic partices emerged from the supernova shell reach the cloud. The detection of such delayed emission of multi-TeV gamma-rays and neutrinos allows indirect identification of the supernova remnant as a particle PeVatron.Comment: ApJ Letters, in press. Reference to recent MILAGRO results adde

Clues to unveil the emitter in LS 5039: powerful jets vs colliding winds

LS 5039 is among the most interesting VHE sources in the Galaxy. Two scenarios have been put forward to explain the observed TeV radiation: jets vs pulsar winds. The source has been detected during the superior conjunction of the compact object, when very large gamma-ray opacities are expected. In addition, electromagnetic cascades, which may make the system more transparent to gamma-rays, are hardly efficient for realistic magnetic fields in massive star surroundings. All this makes unlikely the standard pulsar scenario for LS 5039, in which the emitter is the region located between the star and the compact object, where the opacities are the largest. Otherwise, a jet-like flow can transport energy to regions where the photon-photon absorption is much lower and the TeV radiation is not so severely absorbed.Comment: 3 pages, 3 Figures, contribution to the "Fourth Heidelberg International Symposium on High-Energy Gamma-Ray Astronomy 2008

Simple analytical approximations for treatment of inverse Compton scattering of relativistic electrons in the black-body radiation field

The inverse Compton (IC) scattering of relativistic electrons is one of the major gamma-ray production mechanisms in different environments. Often the target photons for the IC scattering are dominated by black (or grey) body radiation. In this case, the precise treatment of the characteristics of IC radiation requires numerical integrations over the Planckian distribution. Formally, analytical integrations are also possible but they result in series of several special functions; this limits the efficiency of usage of these expressions. The aim of this work is the derivation of approximate analytical presentations which would provide adequate accuracy for the calculations of the energy spectra of up-scattered radiation, the rate of electron energy losses, and the mean energy of emitted photons. Such formulae have been obtained by merging the analytical asymptotic limits. The coefficients in these expressions are calculated via the least square fitting of the results of numerical integrations. The simple analytical presentations, obtained for both the isotropic and anisotropic target radiation fields, provide adequate (as good as $1\%$) accuracy for broad astrophysical applications.Comment: 16 pages, 11 figures, accepted for publication in Ap

Multiwavelength Signatures of Cosmic Ray Acceleration by Young Supernova Remnants

An overview is given of multiwavelength observations of young supernova remnants, with a focus on the observational signatures of efficient cosmic ray acceleration. Some of the effects that may be attributed to efficient cosmic ray acceleration are the radial magnetic fields in young supernova remnants, magnetic field amplification as determined with X-ray imaging spectroscopy, evidence for large post-shock compression factors, and low plasma temperatures, as measured with high resolution optical/UV/X-ray spectroscopy. Special emphasis is given to spectroscopy of post-shock plasma's, which offers an opportunity to directly measure the post-shock temperature. In the presence of efficient cosmic ray acceleration the post-shock temperatures are expected to be lower than according to standard equations for a strong shock. For a number of supernova remnants this seems indeed to be the case.Comment: Invited review, to appear in the proceedings of "4th Heidelberg International Symposium on High Energy Gamma-Ray Astronomy 2008

Implications of the VHE Gamma-Ray Detection of the Quasar 3C279

The MAGIC collaboration recently reported the detection of the quasar 3C279 at > 100 GeV gamma-ray energies. Here we present simultaneous optical (BVRI) and X-ray (RXTE PCA) data from the day of the VHE detection and discuss the implications of the snap-shot spectral energy distribution for jet models of blazars. A one-zone synchrotron-self-Compton origin of the entire SED, including the VHE gamma-ray emission can be ruled out. The VHE emission could, in principle, be interpreted as Compton upscattering of external radiation (e.g., from the broad-line regions). However, such an interpretation would require either an unusually low magnetic field of B ~ 0.03 G or an unrealistically high Doppler factor of Gamma ~ 140. In addition, such a model fails to reproduce the observed X-ray flux. This as well as the lack of correlated variability in the optical with the VHE gamma-ray emission and the substantial gamma-gamma opacity of the BLR radiation field to VHE gamma-rays suggests a multi-zone model. In particular, an SSC model with an emission region far outside the BLR reproduces the simultaneous X-ray -- VHE gamma-ray spectrum of 3C279. Alternatively, a hadronic model is capable of reproducing the observed SED of 3C279 reasonably well. However, the hadronic model requires a rather extreme jet power of L_j ~ 10^{49} erg s^{-1}, compared to a requirement of L_j ~ 2 X 10^{47} erg s^{-1} for a multi-zone leptonic model.Comment: Accepted for pulication. Several clarifications and additions to the manuscript to match the accepted versio

The Comparison of the Swift Gamma-Ray Bursts With and Without Measured Redshifts

Gamma-ray bursts, detected by the Swift satellite, are separated into two samples: the bursts with and without determined redshifts. These two samples are compared by the standard Student t-test and F-test. We have compared the dispersions and the mean values of the durations, peak fluxes and fluences in order to find any differences among these two samples. No essential differences were found.Comment: Published in the Proceedings of the 4th Heidelberg International Symposium on High Energy Gamma-Ray Astronomy, 200

Gamma-ray flares from red giant/jet interactions in AGN

Non-blazar AGN have been recently established as a class of gamma-ray sources. M87, a nearby representative of this class, show fast TeV variability on timescales of a few days. We suggest a scenario of flare gamma-ray emission in non-blazar AGN based on a red giant interacting with the jet at the base. We solve the hydrodynamical equations that describe the evolution of the envelope of a red giant blown by the impact of the jet. If the red giant is at least slightly tidally disrupted by the supermassive black hole, enough stellar material will be blown by the jet, expanding quickly until a significant part of the jet is shocked. This process can render suitable conditions for energy dissipation and proton acceleration, which could explain the detected day-scale TeV flares from M87 via proton-proton collisions. Since the produced radiation would be unbeamed, such an events should be mostly detected from non-blazar AGN. They may be frequent phenomena, detectable in the GeV-TeV range even up to distances of $\sim 1$ Gpc for the most powerful jets. The counterparts at lower energies are expected to be not too bright.} {M87, and nearby non-blazar AGN in general, can be fast variable sources of gamma-rays through red giant/jet interactions.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figure