A detailed study of Gamma-ray emission from Cassiopeia A using VERITAS

TL;DR

This paper presents a comprehensive analysis of gamma-ray emissions from Cassiopeia A using VERITAS, aiming to distinguish electron and proton contributions to understand cosmic ray acceleration in supernova remnants.

Contribution

It provides the most detailed spectral and morphological gamma-ray data of Cassiopeia A to date, enhancing understanding of particle acceleration mechanisms in SNRs.

Findings

Detected gamma-ray spectrum over a broad energy range

Resolved the spatial morphology of gamma-ray emission

Provided constraints on electron and proton contributions

Abstract

Supernova remnants (SNRs) have long been considered the leading candidate sites for the acceleration of cosmic rays within the Galaxy through the process of diffusive shock acceleration. The connection between SNRs and cosmic rays is supported by the detection of high energy (HE; 100 MeV to 100 GeV) and very high energy (VHE; 100 GeV to 100 TeV) gamma rays from young and middle-aged SNRs. However, the interpretation of the gamma-ray observations is not unique. This is due to the fact that gamma rays can be produced by electrons through non-thermal Bremsstrahlung and inverse Compton scattering, and by protons through proton-proton collisions and subsequent neutral pion decay. To disentangle and quantify the contributions of electrons and protons to the gamma-ray flux, it is necessary to measure precisely the spectra and morphology of SNRs over a broad range of gamma-ray energies. Cassiopeia A (Cas A) is one such young SNR ( 350 years) which is bright in radio and X-rays. It has been detected as a bright point source in HE gamma rays by Fermi-LAT and in VHE gamma rays by HEGRA, MAGIC and VERITAS. Cas A has been observed with VERITAS for more than 60 hours - three times the published exposure. The observations were taken between 2007 and 2013 over a wide range of zenith angles. In particular, half of the total data were taken under large zenith angles to boost the effective area above few TeV. Here, we will present the detailed spectral and morphological results from the complete dataset.