| Issue |
A&A
Volume 660, April 2022
|
|
|---|---|---|
| Article Number | A8 | |
| Number of page(s) | 6 | |
| Section | Astrophysical processes | |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202142097 | |
| Published online | 30 March 2022 | |
Pulsar wind nebula origin of the LHAASO-detected ultra-high energy γ-ray sources
Max-Planck-Institut für Kernphysik, Postfach 103980, 69029 Heidelberg, Germany
e-mail: mischa.breuhaus@mpi-hd.mpg.de
Received:
26
August
2021
Accepted:
23
December
2021
The recent measurement by LHAASO of gamma-ray emission extending up to hundreds of TeV from multiple Galactic sources represents a major observational step forward in the search for the origin of the Galactic cosmic rays. The burning question is if this ultra-high-energy emission is associated with the acceleration of protons and/or nuclei to PeV energies, or if it can be associated with PeV-electron accelerators. A strong Klein-Nishina suppression of inverse Compton emission at these energies is unavoidable; nevertheless, we show here that inverse Compton emission can provide a natural explanation for the measured emission and that an association with the established PeV-electron accelerating source class of pulsar wind nebulae is also rather natural. However, a clear distinction between different models requires taking multi-wavelength data into account, having good knowledge of the local environmental conditions, and, in some cases, performing multi-source modelling.
Key words: radiation mechanisms: non-thermal / pulsars: general / gamma rays: stars
© M. Breuhaus et al. 2022
Open Access article, published by EDP Sciences, under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Open Access funding provided by Max Planck Society.
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