2015A&A...573A..37Y

Two-dimensional magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulations are used to model the emission properties of TeV-bright shell-type supernova remnants (SNRs) and to explore their nature. In the leptonic scenario for the TeV emission, the γ-ray emission is produced via inverse Compton scattering of background soft photons by high-energy electrons accelerated by the shocks of the SNRs. In a previous paper, we showed that since the energy densities of the cosmic microwave background radiation and that of the IR/optical background photons are much higher than that of the photons produced by the same high-energy electrons via the synchrotron process, the observed correlation between X-ray and TeV brightness of SNR RXJ1713.7-3946 can be readily explained with the assumption that the energy density of relativistic electrons is proportional to that of the magnetic field. The TeV emissivity is therefore proportional to the magnetic field energy density and MHDsimulations can be used to model the TeV structure of such remnants directly. Two-dimensional MHD simulations for SNRs are then performed under the assumption that the ambient interstellar medium is turbulent with the magnetic field and density fluctuations, following a Kolmogorov-like power-law spectrum. (1) As expected, these simulations confirm early 1D and 2D modelings of these sources, namely the hydrodynamical evolution of the shock waves and amplification of magnetic field by Rayleigh-Taylor convective flows and by shocks propagating in a turbulent medium; (2) we reproduce rather complex morphological structure for γ-rays, for example, the bright thin rim and significant asymmetry, suggesting intrinsic variations of the source morphology not related to the structure of the progenitor and environment; and (3) the observed radial profile of several remnants are well reproduced with an ambient medium density of 0.1-1cm^–3. An even lower ambient density leads to a sharper drop of the TeV brightness with radius than what is observed near the outer edge of these remnants. In a turbulent background medium, we can reproduce the observed characteristics of several shell-type TeV SNRs with reasonable parameters except for a higher ambient density than that inferred from X-ray observations.