Prospects for Cherenkov Telescope Array observations of the young supernova remnant RX J1713.7−3946
2017
We perform simulations for future
Cherenkov Telescope Array(CTA) observations of RX~J1713.7−3946, a young
supernova remnant(SNR) and one of the brightest sources ever discovered in very-high-energy (VHE)
gamma rays. Special attention is paid to explore possible spatial (anti-)correlations of
gamma rayswith emission at other wavelengths, in particular X-rays and CO/H{\sc i} emission. We present a series of simulated images of RX J1713.7−3946 for CTA based on a set of
observationallymotivated models for the
gamma-rayemission. In these models, VHE
gamma raysproduced by high-energy electrons are assumed to trace the non-thermal X-ray emission observed by {\it XMM-Newton}, whereas those originating from relativistic protons delineate the local gas distributions. The local atomic and molecular gas distributions are deduced by the NANTEN team from CO and H{\sc i} observations. Our primary goal is to show how one can distinguish the emission mechanism(s) of the
gamma rays(i.e., hadronic vs leptonic, or a mixture of the two) through information provided by their spatial distribution, spectra, and time variation. This work is the first attempt to quantitatively evaluate the capabilities of CTA to achieve various proposed scientific goals by observing this important cosmic
particle accelerator.
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