PoS - Proceedings of Science
Volume 444 - 38th International Cosmic Ray Conference (ICRC2023) - Gamma-ray Astronomy (GA)
Investigating the Nature of the Hard X-ray/Soft Gamma-ray Emission from Centaurus A
J. Rodi*, E. Jourdain, M. Molina and J.P. Roques
Full text: pdf
Pre-published on: August 09, 2023
Published on: September 27, 2024
Abstract
The question of the origin of the hard X-ray/soft gamma-ray emission in Centaurus A (Cen A) persists despite decades of observations. Low energy results from X-ray instruments suggest a jet origin. In contrast, high energy X-ray/soft gamma-ray instruments find electron temperatures indicating a corona origin is possible. The spectral energy distribution (SED) peaks in this energy range so understanding the origin of this emission is critical to modelling it. We analyzed
INTEGRAL/IBIS-ISGRI and SPI data and observations over nearly 20 years. We did not find any spectral variability so we combined all observations for long-term average spectra. A NuSTAR observation was also added to study the 3.5 keV - 2.2 MeV spectrum. Spectral fits using a CompTT model found 𝑘𝑇𝑒 ~ 520 keV, near pair-production runaway. The spectrum was also well described by a log-parabola to model synchrotron self-Compton emission (SSC) from the jet. Using a
log-parabola can explain the data up to ~ 3 GeV when including the 12-year catalog Fermi/LAT spectrum. Including a corona spectral component to model the hard X-rays/soft gamma-rays and a log-parabola for MeV to GeV emission can also well-describe the data, but the spectral parameters are poorly constrained. Thus, the hard X-ray/soft gamma-ray emission is likely due to SSC jet emission.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.22323/1.444.0650
How to cite

Metadata are provided both in "article" format (very similar to INSPIRE) as this helps creating very compact bibliographies which can be beneficial to authors and readers, and in "proceeding" format which is more detailed and complete.

Open Access
Creative Commons LicenseCopyright owned by the author(s) under the term of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.