University of Arizona | 2017 Sep 04
New research revealed that the entire zoo of electromagnetic radiation streaming from the Crab Nebula has its origin in one population of electrons and must be produced in a different way than scientists have traditionally thought.
[c][attachment=0]Crab_Multiwavelength[1].png[/attachment][/c][hr][/hr]The origin of cosmic rays, high-energy particles from outer space constantly impacting on Earth, is among the most challenging open questions in astrophysics.
Discovered more than 100 years ago and considered a potential health risk to airplane crews and astronauts, cosmic rays are believed to be produced by shock waves -- for example, those resulting from supernova explosions. The most energetic cosmic rays streaking across the universe carry 10 to 100 million times the energy generated by particle colliders such as the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. ...
The Crab Nebula, the remnant of a supernova explosion that was observed almost 1,000 years ago in A.D. 1054, is one of the best-studied objects in the history of astronomy and a known source of cosmic rays. It emits radiation across the entire electromagnetic spectrum, from gamma rays, ultraviolet and visible light, to infrared and radio waves. Most of what we see comes from very energetic particles (electrons), and astrophysicists can construct detailed models to try to reproduce the radiation that these particles emit. ...
Particle Acceleration Model for the Broadband Baseline Spectrum of the Crab Nebula - Federico Fraschetti, Martin Pohl
- Monthly Notices of the RAS 471(4):11 (Nov 2017) DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stx1833
arXiv.org > astro-ph > arXiv:1702.00816 > 02 Feb 2017 (v1), 18 Jul 2017 (v2)