Progressive steepening of the SNR RX J1713.7-3946 X-ray spectrum from XMM-Newton to INTEGRAL [HEAP]

http://arxiv.org/abs/1908.04651


In this work, we present the first detailed analysis of the supernova remnant RX J1713.7-3946 in the hard X-ray energy range with the IBIS coded-mask telescope on board the INTEGRAL observatory. The shell-type morphology of the entire remnant is mapped in hard X-rays for the first time and significantly detected up to 50 keV. The IBIS sky image of RX J1713.7-3946, accumulated over 14 years of operations, demonstrates two extended hard X-ray sources. These sources are spatially consistent with northwest and southwest rims of RX J1713.7-3946 and are also clearly visible at energies below 10 keV with XMM-Newton. This points to a single emission mechanism operating in soft and hard X-rays. The INTEGRAL 17-120 keV spectrum of RX J1713.7-3946 is characterized by a power-law continuum with the photon index of $\Gamma\approx3$, that is significantly softer than $\Gamma\approx2$ determined by XMM-Newton in the 1-10 keV energy range, suggesting a progressive steepening of the spectrum with the energy.

Read this paper on arXiv…

E. Kuznetsova, R. Krivonos, E. Churazov, et. al.
Wed, 14 Aug 19
19/60

Comments: 10 pages, 12 figures, 5 tables. Accepted to MNRAS