Evolution of Synchrotron X-rays in Supernova Remnants

TL;DR

This study analyzes how synchrotron X-ray emission from supernova remnants evolves with size, proposing a model that explains luminosity decline and estimates the energy of accelerated particles.

Contribution

It introduces a simple evolutionary model for synchrotron X-ray luminosity in SNRs that accounts for spectral shape changes and estimates particle energies.

Findings

X-ray luminosity drops when SNRs exceed ~5 pc in size

The model reproduces observed luminosity trends with reasonable parameters

Estimated energy of accelerated electrons is 10^(47-48) ergs

Abstract

A systematic study of the synchrotron X-ray emission from supernova remnants (SNRs) has been conducted. We selected a total of 12 SNRs whose synchrotron X-ray spectral parameters are available in the literature with reasonable accuracy, and studied how their luminosities change as a function of radius. It is found that the synchrotron X-ray luminosity tends to drop especially when the SNRs become larger than ~5 pc, despite large scatter. This may be explained by the change of spectral shape caused by the decrease of the synchrotron roll-off energy. A simple evolutionary model of the X-ray luminosity is proposed and is found to reproduce the observed data approximately, with reasonable model parameters. According to the model, the total energy of accelerated electrons is estimated to be 10^(47-48) ergs, which is well below the supernova explosion energy. The maximum energies of accelerated electrons and protons are also discussed.