Stuttgart 2012 – scientific programme

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EP: Fachverband Extraterrestrische Physik

EP 16: Astrophysik I

EP 16.4: Talk

Thursday, March 15, 2012, 11:15–11:30, V55.21

Nuclear Lines as a Fingerprint of Hadronic Cosmic Rays — •Alexander Summa, Dominik Elsässer, and Karl Mannheim — Institut für Theoretische Physik und Astrophysik, Würzburg

Potential sources of cosmic rays can be observed through their gamma-ray emission. At high energies, the ambiguity between inverse-Compton emission and pion-decay gamma rays cannot easily be resolved. The experimental proof of nuclear de-excitation line spectra would therefore be of utmost diagnostic importance. Here, we focus on prospects for detecting nuclear de-excitation lines in the Wolf-Rayet supernova remnant Cassiopeia A. We calculate the spectrum of prominent gamma-ray lines using the proton spectrum inferred from high energy measurements by MAGIC and FERMI and the chemical abundances in the reverse shock region obtained from X-ray spectroscopy. It is shown that low-energy cosmic rays accelerated at the reverse shock are able to produce a flux of nuclear de-excitation lines which would be clearly detectable by a future telescope mission in the MeV range.