Talk Details

Friday, December 11, 2009 - 11:00am

Fabrice Feinstein:

"What we learn from supernova remnants interacting with molecular clouds"

Abstract. Supernova remnants are the most likely place for Galactic cosmic-ray acceleration. They may explain the energy spectrum and the flux of cosmic rays up to the PeV scale. However, even at these very high energies, their trajectory is bent by local magnetic fields on their way to us, so that we cannot prove the hypothesis by mapping the sky. SNRs are naturally associated with molecular clouds, as they are the birth place of massive stars which evolve rapidly and end as supernovae, before the cloud is dispersed. The current generation of telescopes such as H.E.S.S., Magic or VERITAS are sensitive enough to give us a detailed image of such interactions, enriched by correlations with multiwavelength observations. I will report on H.E.S.S. observations of such associations, recently detected as very high-energy photon sources. A CNRS-Images/HESS film on the H.E.S.S. telescope will be shown as an introduction (for the beginners...).