20 research outputs found
High Energy Processes in Pulsar Wind Nebulae
Young pulsars produce relativistic winds which interact with matter ejected
during the supernova explosion and the surrounding interstellar gas. Particles
are accelerated to very high energies somewhere in the pulsar winds or at the
shocks produced in collisions of the winds with the surrounding medium. As a
result of interactions of relativistic leptons with the magnetic field and low
energy radiation (of synchrotron origin, thermal, or microwave background), the
non-thermal radiation is produced with the lowest possible energies up to
100 TeV. The high energy (TeV) gamma-ray emission has been originally
observed from the Crab Nebula and recently from several other objects. Recent
observations by the HESS Cherenkov telescopes allow to study for the first time
morphology of the sources of high energy emission, showing unexpected spectral
features. They might be also interpreted as due to acceleration of hadrons.
However, theory of particle acceleration in the PWNe and models for production
of radiation are still at their early stage of development since it becomes
clear that realistic modeling of these objects should include their time
evolution and three-dimensional geometry. In this paper we concentrate on the
attempts to create a model for the high energy processes inside the PWNe which
includes existence not only relativistic leptons but also hadrons inside the
nebula. Such model should also take into account evolution of the nebula in
time. Possible high energy expectations based on such a model are discussed in
the context of new observations.Comment: 9 pages, 1 figure, Proc. Multimessenger approach to high energy
gamma-ray source