The Astrophysical Journal Letters (Jan 2024)

Discovery of a Shock-compressed Magnetic Field in the Northwestern Rim of the Young Supernova Remnant RX J1713.7–3946 with X-Ray Polarimetry

  • Riccardo Ferrazzoli,
  • Dmitry Prokhorov,
  • Niccolò Bucciantini,
  • Patrick Slane,
  • Jacco Vink,
  • Martina Cardillo,
  • Yi-Jung Yang,
  • Stefano Silvestri,
  • Ping Zhou,
  • Enrico Costa,
  • Nicola Omodei,
  • C.-Y. Ng,
  • Paolo Soffitta,
  • Martin C. Weisskopf,
  • Luca Baldini,
  • Alessandro Di Marco,
  • Victor Doroshenko,
  • Jeremy Heyl,
  • Philip Kaaret,
  • Dawoon E. Kim,
  • Frédéric Marin,
  • Tsunefumi Mizuno,
  • Melissa Pesce-Rollins,
  • Carmelo Sgrò,
  • Douglas A. Swartz,
  • Toru Tamagawa,
  • Fei Xie,
  • Iván Agudo,
  • Lucio A. Antonelli,
  • Matteo Bachetti,
  • Wayne H. Baumgartner,
  • Ronaldo Bellazzini,
  • Stefano Bianchi,
  • Stephen D. Bongiorno,
  • Raffaella Bonino,
  • Alessandro Brez,
  • Fiamma Capitanio,
  • Simone Castellano,
  • Elisabetta Cavazzuti,
  • Chien-Ting Chen,
  • Stefano Ciprini,
  • Alessandra De Rosa,
  • Ettore Del Monte,
  • Laura Di Gesu,
  • Niccolò Di Lalla,
  • Immacolata Donnarumma,
  • Michal Dovčiak,
  • Steven R. Ehlert,
  • Teruaki Enoto,
  • Yuri Evangelista,
  • Sergio Fabiani,
  • Javier A. Garcia,
  • Shuichi Gunji,
  • Kiyoshi Hayashida,
  • Wataru Iwakiri,
  • Svetlana G. Jorstad,
  • Vladimir Karas,
  • Fabian Kislat,
  • Takao Kitaguchi,
  • Jeffery J. Kolodziejczak,
  • Henric Krawczynski,
  • Fabio La Monaca,
  • Luca Latronico,
  • Ioannis Liodakis,
  • Simone Maldera,
  • Alberto Manfreda,
  • Andrea Marinucci,
  • Alan P. Marscher,
  • Herman L. Marshall,
  • Francesco Massaro,
  • Giorgio Matt,
  • Ikuyuki Mitsuishi,
  • Fabio Muleri,
  • Michela Negro,
  • Stephen L. O’Dell,
  • Chiara Oppedisano,
  • Alessandro Papitto,
  • George G. Pavlov,
  • Abel L. Peirson,
  • Matteo Perri,
  • Pierre-Olivier Petrucci,
  • Maura Pilia,
  • Andrea Possenti,
  • Juri Poutanen,
  • Simonetta Puccetti,
  • Brian D. Ramsey,
  • John Rankin,
  • Ajay Ratheesh,
  • Oliver J. Roberts,
  • Roger W. Romani,
  • Gloria Spandre,
  • Fabrizio Tavecchio,
  • Roberto Taverna,
  • Yuzuru Tawara,
  • Allyn F. Tennant,
  • Nicholas E. Thomas,
  • Francesco Tombesi,
  • Alessio Trois,
  • Sergey S. Tsygankov,
  • Roberto Turolla,
  • Kinwah Wu,
  • Silvia Zane

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/ad4a68
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 967, no. 2
p. L38

Abstract

Read online

Supernova remnants (SNRs) provide insights into cosmic-ray acceleration and magnetic field dynamics at shock fronts. Recent X-ray polarimetric measurements by the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) have revealed radial magnetic fields near particle acceleration sites in young SNRs, including Cassiopeia A, Tycho, and SN 1006. We present here the spatially resolved IXPE X-ray polarimetric observation of the northwestern rim of SNR RX J1713.7–3946. For the first time, our analysis shows that the magnetic field in the particle acceleration sites of this SNR is oriented tangentially with respect to the shock front. Because of the lack of precise Faraday rotation measurements in the radio band, this was not possible before. The average measured polarization degree (PD) of the synchrotron emission is 12.5% ± 3.3%, lower than the one measured by IXPE in SN 1006, comparable to the Tycho one, but notably higher than the one in Cassiopeia A. On subparsec scales, localized patches within RX J1713.7–3946 display a PD of up to 41.5% ± 9.5%. These results are compatible with a shock-compressed magnetic field. However, in order to explain the observed PD, either the presence of a radial net magnetic field upstream of the shock or partial reisotropization of the turbulence downstream by radial magnetohydrodynamical instabilities can be invoked. From comparison of PD and magnetic field distribution with γ -rays and ^12 CO data, our results provide new inputs in favor of a leptonic origin of the γ -ray emission.

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