Detectability of Supernova remnants with the Southern Wide-field Gamma-ray Observatory

Journal article

Supernova remnants (SNRs) are likely sources of hadronic particle acceleration within our galaxy, contributing to the galactic cosmic ray flux. Next-generation instruments, such as the Southern Wide-field Gamma-ray Observatory (SWGO), will be of crucial importance in identifying new candidate SNRs. SWGO will observe two-thirds of the gamma-ray sky, covering the energy range between a few hundreds of GeV and a PeV. In this work, we apply a model of SNR evolution to a catalogue of SNRs in order to predict their gamma-ray spectra, explore the SNR emission phase space, and quantify detection prospects for SWGO. Finally, we validate our model for sources observed with current-generation instruments, fitting it using a Monte-Carlo Markov Chain technique to the observed gamma-ray emission from four SNRs. We anticipate that at least 6, and potentially as many as 11 SNRs will be detected by SWGO within 1 year.

Authors: Scharrer, N; Spencer, S; Joshi, V; Mitchell, A

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: IOP Publishing
• Journal: Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics
• Volume: 2025
• Issue: 05
• Article number: 096
• Publication date: 2025-05-29
• Acceptance date: 2025-03-20
• DOI: 10.1088/1475-7516/2025/05/096
• EISSN: 1475-7516
• Language: English
• Keywords: gamma ray experiments; supernova remnants