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http://www-cr.scphys.kyoto-u.ac.jp/research/xray/xray-e_large.html
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The remnant of
the brightest historical supernova exploded in AD1006, now provides us with
the first conclusive evidence for a lineless, power-low component of X-ray
emission from a shell supernova remnant, and thus represents the nonthermal
X-rays from shell SNRs. This implies that electrons emitting synchrotron
radiation at these X-ray energies must have energies of order 100 TeV, among
the highest ever observed or directly inferred in any context, astrophysical
or otherwise. They are certainly the highest energies seen in the absence of
collapsed objects such as neutron stars of black holes.
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Since we are
observing 8 keV synchrotron photons. The electrons producing them must have
energies of 2.e5 (B/10 microGauss)^-1/2 GeV, or 200 TeV for this magnetic
field. This energy is close to that of the 'knee' in the cosmic-ray spectrum,
and provides strong evidence that SNR shock waves can accelerate electrons to
these energies. The process of shock acceleration, while well-studied
theoretically, has lacked direct evidence of operation to the extremes of
energies for which it has been invoked, and SN1006 makes an important
contribution to providing such evidence.
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Figure 1.
The ASCA X-ray image of SN1006. X-ray spectra were made from the two
elliptical regions.
Figure 2. The X-ray spectra from the rim
and central regions; the former is non- thermal spectrum, while the latter is
that of thin thermal plasma typical to shell-like SNRs.
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