Derivation of the Electron Distribution in SNR RX J1713.7-3946 via a Spectral Inversion Method

TL;DR

This paper derives the electron energy distribution in supernova remnant RX J1713.7-3946 using spectral inversion, supporting a leptonic origin of its gamma-ray emission without relying on specific acceleration models.

Contribution

It introduces a spectral inversion method to determine the parent electron distribution directly from observed spectra, independent of acceleration models.

Findings

Electron distribution derived from multi-wavelength spectra.

Supports leptonic scenario for TeV gamma-ray emission.

Method provides uncertainties on the electron spectrum.

Abstract

We show that the radio, X-ray and gamma-ray spectrum of the supernova remnant RX J1713.7-3946 can be accounted for with the simplest emission model, where all of these emissions are attributed to a population of relativistic electrons interacting with the cosmic microwave background radiation, IR interstellar photons, and a background magnetic field. With a spectral inversion method (Johns & Lin 1992), the parent electron distribution and its uncertainties are derived from the observed photon spectrum. These results are independent on the model of particle acceleration and strongly support the leptonic scenario for the TeV emission.