Discovery of a shock-compressed magnetic field in the north-western rim of the young supernova remnant RX J1713.7-3946 with X-ray polarimetry
Creators: name: Ferrazzoli, Riccardo
name: Prokhorov, Dmitry
name: Bucciantini, Niccolò
name: Slane, Patrick
name: Vink, Jacco
name: Cardillo, Martina
name: Yang, Yi-Jung
name: Silvestri, Stefano
name: Zhou, Ping
name: Costa, Enrico
name: Omodei, Nicola
name: Ng, C. -Y.
name: Soffitta, Paolo
name: Weisskopf, Martin C.
name: Baldini, Luca
name: Di Marco, Alessandro
name: Doroshenko, Victor
name: Heyl, Jeremy
name: Kaaret, Philip
name: Kim, Dawoon E.
name: Marin, Frédéric
name: Mizuno, Tsunefumi
name: Pesce-Rollins, Melissa
name: Sgrò, Carmelo
name: Swartz, Douglas A.
name: Tamagawa, Toru
name: Xie, Fei
name: Agudo, Iván
name: Antonelli, Lucio A.
name: Bachetti, Matteo
name: Baumgartner, Wayne H.
name: Bellazzini, Ronaldo
name: Bianchi, Stefano
name: Bongiorno, Stephen D.
name: Bonino, Raffaella
name: Brez, Alessandro
name: Capitanio, Fiamma
name: Castellano, Simone
name: Cavazzuti, Elisabetta
name: Chen, Chien-Ting
name: Ciprini, Stefano
name: De Rosa, Alessandra
name: Del Monte, Ettore
name: Di Gesu, Laura
name: Di Lalla, Niccolò
name: Donnarumma, Immacolata
name: Dovčiak, Michal
name: Ehlert, Steven R.
name: Enoto, Teruaki
name: Evangelista, Yuri
name: Fabiani, Sergio
name: Garcia, Javier A.
name: Gunji, Shuichi
name: Hayashida, Kiyoshi
name: Iwakiri, Wataru
name: Jorstad, Svetlana G.
name: Karas, Vladimir
name: Kislat, Fabian
name: Kitaguchi, Takao
name: Kolodziejczak, Jeffery J.
name: Krawczynski, Henric
name: La Monaca, Fabio
name: Latronico, Luca
name: Liodakis, Ioannis
name: Maldera, Simone
name: Manfreda, Alberto
name: Marinucci, Andrea
name: Marscher, Alan P.
name: Marshall, Herman L.
name: Massaro, Francesco
name: Matt, Giorgio
name: Mitsuishi, Ikuyuki
name: Muleri, Fabio
name: Negro, Michela
name: O'Dell, Stephen L.
name: Oppedisano, Chiara
name: Papitto, Alessandro
name: Pavlov, George G.
name: Peirson, Abel L.
name: Perri, Matteo
name: Petrucci, Pierre-Olivier
name: Pilia, Maura
name: Possenti, Andrea
name: Poutanen, Juri
name: Puccetti, Simonetta
name: Ramsey, Brian D.
name: Rankin, John
name: Ratheesh, Ajay
name: Roberts, Oliver J.
name: Romani, Roger W.
name: Spandre, Gloria
name: Tavecchio, Fabrizio
name: Taverna, Roberto
name: Tawara, Yuzuru
name: Tennant, Allyn F.
name: Thomas, Nicholas E.
name: Tombesi, Francesco
name: Trois, Alessio
name: Tsygankov, Sergey S.
name: Turolla, Roberto
name: Wu, Kinwah
name: Zane, Silvia
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2024
Subjects: subject: High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE)
subject: Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: 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 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 synchtrotron emission is 12.5 {\pm} 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 sub-parsec scales, localized patches within RX J1713.7-3946 display PD up to 41.5 {\pm} 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 magneto-hydrodynamical 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.
description: 18 pages, 6 figures, 2 tables, published in ApJ Letters