Time-dependent shock acceleration of particles. Effect of the time-dependent injection, with application to supernova remnants

TL;DR

This paper develops general solutions for time-dependent shock acceleration of particles, emphasizing how variable injection influences particle spectra, with applications to supernova remnants and implications for interpreting radio and gamma-ray observations.

Contribution

It introduces a generalized approach to solve the time-dependent diffusive shock acceleration equation, accounting for variable injection and different acceleration time-scales, extending previous models.

Findings

The maximum particle momentum shifts to smaller values with increased downstream acceleration time-scale.

Time-dependent injection alters the particle spectrum shape, making the power-law index dependent on injection history.

Early injection efficiency significantly influences the high-energy spectral hardness at later times.

Abstract

Three approaches are considered to solve the equation which describes the time-dependent diffusive shock acceleration of test particles at the non-relativistic shocks. At first, the solution of Drury (1983) for the particle distribution function at the shock is generalized to any relation between the acceleration time-scales upstream and downstream and for the time-dependent injection efficiency. Three alternative solutions for the spatial dependence of the distribution function are derived. Then, the two other approaches to solve the time-dependent equation are presented, one of which does not require the Laplace transform. At the end, our more general solution is discussed, with a particular attention to the time-dependent injection in supernova remnants. It is shown that, comparing to the case with the dominant upstream acceleration time-scale, the maximum momentum of accelerated particles shifts toward the smaller momenta with increase of the downstream acceleration time-scale. The time-dependent injection affects the shape of the particle spectrum. In particular, i) the power-law index is not solely determined by the shock compression, in contrast to the stationary solution; ii) the larger the injection efficiency during the first decades after the supernova explosion, the harder the particle spectrum around the high-energy cutoff at the later times. This is important, in particular, for interpretation of the radio and gamma-ray observations of supernova remnants, as demonstrated on a number of examples.