On the Nature of the TeV Emission from the SNR SN 1006

TL;DR

This paper models the non-thermal emission from supernova remnant SN 1006, using multi-frequency data to constrain electron populations and assess gamma-ray emission origins, concluding that cosmic-ray interactions alone cannot explain the observed TeV emission.

Contribution

It introduces a two-electron-population model constrained by radio and X-ray data to interpret gamma-ray observations of SN 1006, challenging the neutral pion decay hypothesis for TeV emission.

Findings

Single power-law cosmic-ray models cannot explain TeV emission.

The model accounts for some gamma-ray flux but not all.

TeV emission likely involves additional processes beyond neutral pion decay.

Abstract

We present a simple model for the non-thermal emission from the historical supernova remnant SN 1006. We constrain the synchrotron parameters of the model with archival radio and hard X-ray data. Our stationary emission model includes two populations of electrons, which is justified by multi-frequency images of the object. From the set of parameters that predict the correct synchrotron flux we select those which are able to account, either partly or entirely, for the gamma-ray emission of the source as seen by HESS. We use the results from this model as well as the latest constraints imposed by the Fermi observatory and conclude that the TeV emission cannot be accounted for by neutral pion decay produced by high-energy cosmic rays with a single "soft" power-law distribution (i.e., with a particle index greater than 2 or so).