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    Particle acceleration in Cassiopeia A revealed by the broadband high-energy spectrum

    Bo-Tao Li and Wei Wang*

    Zhuo Li†

    • Department of Astronomy, School of Physics and Technology, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, China

    • Department of Astronomy, School of Physics, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China and Kavli Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China

    • *Contact author: wangwei2017@whu.edu.cn
    • †Contact author: zhuo.li@pku.edu.cn

    Phys. Rev. D 113, 123038 – Published 15 June, 2026

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/mj63-t5fj

    Abstract

    Recently, the GeV–sub-PeV spectrum of supernova remnant (SNR) Cassiopeia A (Cas A), one of the youngest and most well-studied SNRs in our Galaxy, has been updated by observations from Fermi-LAT and LHAASO. We revisit Cas A with our previous shell-plus-jet asymmetric model and investigate its particle acceleration ability. The broadband fitting results suggest that the double-peaked gamma-ray spectrum can be well attributed to proton-proton (PP) collisions and inverse Compton scattering within the SNR shell, while the synchrotron emission from a jet component with velocity of ∼0.1c can account for the hard x-ray emission up to 220 keV. Furthermore, the PP collisions in the jet can produce a sub-PeV emission, but constrained by the LHAASO-KM2A limit to a flux below ∼1×10−14  erg/(cm2 s) at 100 TeV. The energy of accelerated protons in the jet of Cas A could be up to 5×1047  erg, which, assuming that the PeV cosmic ray distribution is clumpy in the Galaxy with the clump size comparable to the thickness of the Galactic plane, derives a proton flux consistent with the observed one at 1 PeV, implying that the Cas A-like SNRs can still be PeVatrons in the Galaxy. It is encouraging for LHAASO and future telescopes to detect or constrain the Cas A spectrum above 100 TeV more precisely.

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