2:00–2:30 pm ERC 401
Nick Corso "Comparing hadronic and leptonic emission from cosmic ray acceleration in supernova remnants"
Supervisor: Prof. Damiano Caprioli
Abstract: The shock fronts of supernova remnants are capable accelerators of practicles, which makes them promising candidates to explain the origin of galactic cosmic rays. However, it remains uncertain whether they are dominantly responsible for the acceleration of leptonic or hadronic particles, or which features primarily determine the dominance of one form or the other. In this study, we apply CRAFT, an implementation of a semi-analytic formalism for non-linear diffusive shock acceleration, to calculate the particle and photon spectra at various stages in the evolution of simulated supernova remnants. Using these spectra, we parametrize the relative strength of hadronic over leptonic emission in order to characterize the optimal sources for the former. We found that the dominance of one over the other depends heavily on the remnant's age and environmental factors, such as ambient density and energy density, which primarily dictate the behavior of the radiative processes resulting in the observed emission. According to our formalism, the most hadronic remnants are young and found in environments of high density but low energy density. This study aims to motivate the targets of future gamma-ray spectra observations in hopes of definitively identifying sources of hadronic cosmic rays.