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X-ray emission from Westerlund 2 detected by SRG/ART-XC and Chandra: search for radiation of TeV leptons
- Source :
- MNRAS 525 (2023) 1553-1561
- Publication Year :
- 2023
-
Abstract
- We present the results of current observations of the young compact cluster of massive stars Westerlund 2 with the Mikhail Pavlinsky ART-XC telescope aboard the Spectrum-Roentgen-Gamma (SRG) observatory which we analysed together with the archival Chandra data. In general, Westerlund 2 was detected over the whole electromagnetic spectrum including high-energy gamma rays, which revealed a cosmic ray acceleration in this object to the energies up to tens of TeV. The detection of Westerlund 2 with ART-XC allowed us to perform a joint spectral analysis together with the high resolution Chandra observations of the diffuse emission from a few selected regions in the vicinity of the Westerlund 2 core in the 0.4 - 20 keV range. To fit the Westerlund 2 X-ray spectrum above a few keV one needs either a non-thermal power-law emission component, or a hot plasma with temperatures $\sim$ 5 keV. Our magnetohydrodynamic modeling of the plasma flows in Westerlund 2 shows substantially lower electron temperatures in the system and thus the presence of the non-thermal component is certainly preferable. A kinetic model of the particle acceleration demonstrated that the non-thermal component may originate from the synchrotron radiation of multi-TeV electrons and positrons produced in Westerlund 2 in accordance with the TeV photons detection from the source.<br />Comment: 10 pages, 6 figures
- Subjects :
- Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Subjects
Details
- Database :
- arXiv
- Journal :
- MNRAS 525 (2023) 1553-1561
- Publication Type :
- Report
- Accession number :
- edsarx.2306.09960
- Document Type :
- Working Paper
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stad2356