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# On the magnetic fields and particle acceleration in Cas A

## 1 Introduction

Supernova remnants have long been thought to be the source of cosmic rays with energies up to at least $`10^{15}`$ eV, where there is a break in the observed cosmic ray spectrum, usually referred to as the “knee”. The recent discoveries of X-ray synchrotron and TeV emission from some supernova remnants support this long held belief by confirming that electrons are accelerated to energies of at least a few TeV (Reynolds & Keohane, 1999). This is still somewhat short of the “knee”, but unlike for ions, the maximum electron energy may be limited by radiation losses.

SN 1006 has become the canonical example of a supernova remnant with X-ray emission dominated by synchrotron radiation from shock accelerated electrons (Koyama et al., 1995). The presence of electrons in excess of 10 TeV is further supported by the detection of TeV emission with the CANGEROO Čerenkov detector (Tanimori et al., 1998). The observed TeV emission is most likely inverse Compton scattering by the same population of electrons that is responsible for the X-ray continuum (Tanimori et al., 1998), although there is some debate about this interpretation (Berezhko et al., 2002).

Another often mentioned candidate for an X-ray synchrotron emitting supernova remnant is Cas A. Its soft X-ray emission is not continuum dominated, but the observed emission above 20 keV cannot be explained by thermal bremsstrahlung, and has therefore been attributed to synchrotron radiation (The et al., 1996; Allen et al., 1997; Favata et al., 1997). The detection of TeV emission by HEGRA is consistent with this interpretation, but pion decay associated with relativistic ions is an equally valid interpretation (Aharonian et al., 2001).

For Cas A the interpretation of both the hard X-ray and the TeV emission is critically dependent on the magnetic field strength. Equipartition arguments to explain the radio luminosity imply magnetic fields of $`B`$ 0.4 - 2 mG (Longair, 1994; Wright et al., 1999), far in excess of the canonical value for the interstellar medium of $`3\mu `$G. The typical loss time of an electron with energy $`E`$, due to synchrotron radiation is (e.g. Reynolds, 1998):

$$\tau _{loss}=\frac{635}{B^2E}\mathrm{s}.$$
(1)
For a magnetic field of 1 mG, a particle with $`E=8`$ TeV loses its energy in 2 yr. For Cas A, 8 TeV is the maximum energy needed to explain the hard X-ray emission (Reynolds & Keohane, 1999). The two year lifetime is much shorter than the lifetime of Cas A, which is probably the remnant of a supernova that exploded in AD 1680 (Ashworth, 1980). Similarly a high magnetic field lowers the number density of relativistic electrons for a given radio brightness, which in turn implies a low inverse Compton contribution to the observed TeV emission.

One way out of this situation would be to assume that electrons are continuously being reaccelerated, but that seems unlikely. The radio morphology of Cas A shows a bright ring of radius $``$1.8′, whereas the shock front, the primary site for cosmic ray acceleration, is at a radius of $``$2.6′. Moreover, detailed radio spectral index studies do not find evidence of reacceleration in bright radio knots, which are probably ejecta fragment penetrating the shell (Anderson & Rudnick, 1996; Wright et al., 1999). These studies rather suggest that brightness variations are the result of variations in the magnetic field, which light up the diffuse relativistic electron population in various degrees.

Here we test an alternative interpretation of the hard X-ray emission with BeppoSAX-PDS data, namely bremsstrahlung from electrons accelerated by lower hybrid waves, which was suggested by Laming (2001a, b). An additional argument for testing such a model is that XMM-Newton observations show that even above 10 keV a substantial fraction of the continuum emission is not associated with the forward shock (Bleeker et al., 2001). The BeppoSAX data, in combination with CGRO-OSSE data, also provides an upper limit on the bremsstrahlung from the electron cosmic ray injection spectrum, from which a new lower limit on the average magnetic field strength can be obtained.

Nevertheless, we argue that X-ray synchrotron radiation does exist in Cas A, and is coming from close to the forward shock, where it shows up as a narrow rim surrounding the remnant, observed in Chandra X-ray continuum images (Gotthelf et al., 2001). Interpreting the width of the rim as a typical length scale for synchrotron losses, we are able to constrain the magnetic field near the shock front. Our analysis supports the idea that the average magnetic field is close to its equipartition value, whereas we find that near the shock front the magnetic field is lower, but still an order of magnitude higher than what may be expected from shocked interstellar medium ($`10^5`$G). We will discuss the implications of these values for the hard X-ray and TeV emission.

## 2 Data and observations

Our analysis of the X-ray emission of Cas A is based on BeppoSAX-PDS data and archival CGRO-OSSE and Chandra data. The BeppoSAX-PDS (Frontera et al., 1997) and CGRO-OSSE (Johnson et al., 1993) instruments both consist of four phoswitch detectors (NaI(Tl)/CsI(Na) scintillation detectors), behind two rocking collimators. They differ, however, substantially in energy range, field of view, and effective area. The BeppoSAX-PDS instruments cover an energy range of 15-300 keV, whereas this is 50 keV to 10 MeV for CGRO-OSSE.

BeppoSAX observed Cas A for 500 ks in May and June 2001 in order to observe the 67.9 keV and 78.4 keV nuclear decay lines of 44Sc, the nuclear decay product of 44Ti. The detection of these lines at the 3-5$`\sigma `$ level, depending on the hard X-ray continuum model, was reported by Vink et al. (2001), which provides more details about the data set. Due to the rocking collimators the effective exposure time is about half the observation time. Together with archival BeppoSAX data the spectra used for our analysis here is based on a total effective PDS exposure of 311 ks.

The spectrum, as presented in Vink et al. (2001), clearly shows the hard X-ray spectrum with a bump associated with the 44Sc line emission. Marginal (2$`\sigma `$) residual emission around 60 keV is possibly caused by fluorescent tantalum K shell emission, as a result of cosmic rays interacting with the collimator, which consists of tantalum with a thin copper-tin bi-layer. Some residual emission above 100 keV is not easily explained (cf. Fig. 3 & 4). It may be intrinsic to Cas A, but some instrumental contamination seems more likely. The residual emission peaks around 200 keV, but is not narrow enough to be caused by fluorescent line emission from any particular material. There are no other similar deep BeppoSAX observations with a moderate hard X-ray brightness like Cas A, which would allow us to identify possible instrumental features at this level.

Although the residual emission above 100 keV is statistically not very significant, one of our concerns is to obtain an upper limit on the emission above 100 keV in order to obtain a lower limit to the average magnetic field in Cas A. We therefore included archival CGRO-OSSE spectra in our analysis. Moreover, the effective area of the instruments peaks around 250 keV, making it useful for constraining the emission of Cas A above 100 keV. Cas A was observed several time by CGRO-OSSE (see The et al., 1996). We added all available Cas A spectra and averaged the corresponding response matrices. The observations were made during the viewing periods 34 - 815 with a total exposure of 909 ks.111In addition to the observations listed in The et al. (1996), this means VP 617, 715, 810, 814, and 815. The total exposure time was 909 ks.

In addition to hard X-ray data, we use a deep (50 ks) archival Chandra observation with the ACIS-S3 chip to complement our analysis. The observation was made in January 2000. The same data were used by Hwang et al. (2000). For our analysis we used level 2 archival data products, generating spectra and calibration products with the standard Chandra software package Ciao v1.1.0.

## 3 The lower hybrid electron acceleration model

Cas A’s morphology indicates a complicated, turbulent hydrodynamical structure. Radio, optical and X-ray images all show many bright knots on top of more diffuse emission. As the forward or reverse shocks strike and illuminate these features, secondary shocks will split off from these primary shocks and propagate back into the already shocked circumstellar or ejecta plasma. In this way shocks may propagate across the likely region of high magnetic field at the contact discontinuity, where field amplification by Rayleigh-Taylor instability may occur. The acceleration of electrons by lower hybrid waves generated by these shocks has been considered by Laming (2001a, b). Bremsstrahlung emitted by these accelerated electrons was shown to provide a very good match to the hard X-ray continuum of Cas A, using the $``$ 50 ksec of BeppoSAX-PDS data that were available at the time.

Lower hybrid waves (LHW) are electrostatic ion oscillations directed within an angular range $`\pm \omega _{pi}/\omega _{pe}`$ of the direction perpendicular to the magnetic field, where $`\omega _{pe}`$ and $`\omega _{pi}`$ are the electron and ion plasma frequencies respectively. The electron screening that would usually damp such oscillations is inhibited by the magnetic field, giving a criterion on the electron temperature that the electron gyroradius be smaller than the wavelength divided by $`2\pi `$. Since $`\omega /k_{}<<\omega /k_{||}`$ the wave can simultaneously be in resonance with ions moving across the magnetic field lines and electrons moving along them. Consequently energy equilibration between ions and electrons may proceed at a much faster rate than by Coulomb collisions alone, and saturate when the electron thermal pressure is equal to the magnetic pressure. Such processes have been considered in the context of two-temperature accretion flows by Begelman & Chiueh (1988). Here cross field ion motions are produced by a combination of curvature and diamagnetic drift, and the magnetic field is presumably generated by a magneto-rotational instability (Balbus & Hawley, 1991, 1998; Quataert et al., 2002), the critical issue being whether sufficient electron-ion equilibration can occur to destroy ADAF or similar solutions for the accretion flow. In dilute plasmas where the electron acceleration time is much shorter than the electron-electron collision time, a non-Maxwellian electron distribution in the component of velocity along the magnetic field can result. This has been modeled numerically using particle-in-cell simulations by Shapiro et al. (1999) for application to cometary X-rays, and analytically by Vaisberg et al. (1983) and Kranosel’skikh et al. (1985). Lower hybrid waves generated by a modified two-stream instability and the resulting accelerated electrons were all observed at Comet Halley (Klimov et al., 1986; Gringauz, 1985). Bingham et al. (2000) considered LHW in supernova remnants and Laming (2001a, b) applied the analytic formulations, which agree well with the numerical work, to the case of accelerated electrons in Cas A. The non-Maxwellian electron distribution function depends on two parameters, the overall normalization (i.e. the fraction of plasma electrons that are accelerated) and the maximum electron energy in the distribution. In our fitting we treat these both as free parameters. A demonstration of how these variables are related to other physics of the Cas A plasma, and hence could be determined is given in the Appendix.

We fitted the predicted spectrum, calculated as in Laming (2001a), but with a relativistic bremsstrahlung cross section taken from Nozawa, Itoh, & Kohyama (1998), to the observed BeppoSAX-PDS X-ray spectrum. Apart from the non-thermal bremsstrahlung spectrum several other components, which are likely to contribute to the hard X-ray emission, are included in the spectral model. At the low end of the hard X-ray spectrum, the tail of the the thermal bremsstrahlung with $`T_\mathrm{e}=4\times 10^7`$ K is expected to contribute to the spectrum. In addition, 44Sc line emission at 68 and 78 keV is expected, as a result of the decay of 44Ti synthesized during the explosion (Vink et al., 2001; Iyudin et al., 1994). The line fluxes of the two nuclear transitions are expected to be almost identical. A broadening corresponding with a velocity dispersion of 5000 km s-1 was included. A residual feature around 60 keV in the observed spectrum may be attributed to cosmic ray induced fluorescence from the tantalum collimator, and was modeled by delta functions corresponding to Ta K$`\alpha `$ (57 keV) and K$`\beta `$ (65 keV) with a ratio of 4:1.222 See the X-ray data booklet (Thompson et al., 2001). The spectrum and best fit model are shown in Fig. 3 and model parameters are given in Table 1.

The parameter values indicate that electrons are possibly accelerated up to $``$95 keV. The model gives a very good fit to the spectrum up to 100 keV. However, it does not describe the emission observed above 100 keV. As discussed above, the data above 100 keV may be less reliable, and the low flux point around 100 keV suggest that the actual continuum emission is indeed curved, as predicted by the LHW model.

In Table 1 we also list for comparison the parameters for a simple power law continuum spectrum, and the X-ray synchrotron models available in the spectral fitting package xspec (Arnaud, 1996), srcut and sresc (Reynolds, 1998; Reynolds & Keohane, 1999). The srcut model is a very simplified model of X-ray synchrotron emission from a relativistic electron distribution with an exponential cut-off. In reality the cut-off energy is likely to vary from place to place, giving a more gradual decrease in slope. Moreover, as explained in the introduction, for the bulk of the relativistic electrons, at a remote distance from the shock front, the maximum electron energy is probably far below what is needed to produce X-ray synchrotron emission. The sresc model takes these spatial effects into account, assuming a Sedov model for the evolution of the supernova remnant. Although, sresc is more physical, it may not be readily applicable to Cas A, which has large magnetic field gradients and is not well described by the standard Sedov model (Vink et al., 1998).

The LHW model is in a similar way somewhat oversimplified, as also here it is likely that maximum energies vary within the remnant, depending on local conditions such as the local shock velocity, obliquity and ion composition. Nevertheless, given the limited number of parameters, the model fits very well. Note that the spectral slope between 20-50 keV, is a property of the model, and not a free parameter.

Finally, note that using the LHW model results in 50% higher 44Sc line fluxes, than using a power law continuum, a result of the continuum curvature predicted by both models. The higher 44Sc line flux is close to the latest CGRO-COMPTEL measurements of the 44Ca line flux (Schönfelder et al., 2000), and translates into a synthesized 44Ti mass of $`1.8\times 10^4`$ M, for a distance of 3.4 kpc (Reed et al., 1995) and a 44Ti decay time of 85.4 yr (Ahmad et al., 1998; Görres et al., 1998; Norman et al., 1998).

## 4 A new lower limit to the average magnetic field

The LHW model is attractive to consider for Cas A because of its high magnetic field strength, which is estimated to be $``$1 mG, based on the assumption of equipartition of the relativistic particle population and the magnetic field energy (e.g. Longair, 1994). Although there is no compelling physical reason why the equipartition assumption should be valid, estimates based on the absence of gamma-ray emission from Cas A supports a value of the magnetic field in excess of what might be expected from a shock compression of the interstellar magnetic field (Cowsik & Sarkar, 1980). The most recent estimate of the magnetic field is based on the upper limit obtained by CGRO-EGRET, suggesting $`B>3.5\times 10^4`$ G (Esposito et al., 1996; Atoyan et al., 2000). This value is derived by comparing the radio synchrotron flux density with the expected bremsstrahlung from the relativistic electrons responsible for the radio emission.

Here we use essentially the same method, but less directly, as we use an extrapolation of the relativistic electron population to energies observed by BeppoSAX-PDS and CGRO-OSSE. The extrapolation used is similar to the one by Asvarov et al. (1990), and assumes that the electron momentum spectrum is a power law distribution, as is expected for an electron population generated by first order Fermi acceleration (Bell, 1978). This means that the energy spectrum flattens at non-relativistic energies. The electron cosmic ray injection spectrum is not well known, but models indicate that at lower energies the spectrum is steeper than expected from extrapolating the relativistic spectrum (Bykov & Uvarov, 1999). In that case our upper limit on the cosmic ray normalization is too high, which translates into too low a lower limit.

Of more concern is the role of energy losses on the shape of the spectrum, as it will tend to flatten the low energy end of the spectrum. We checked the signature of adiabatic losses on the spectrum, and found that it does affect the spectrum mostly at mildly relativistic energies, where it results in a steeper spectrum at low energies, is flatter at intermediate energies and then assumes the original power law index at extreme relativistic energies. We did not take the steepening into account, as we do not know how much the average electron spectrum is affected by it. But if there is a steepening, it makes our estimates too conservative. The most dominant other loss factor between 100 and 1000 keV in the ionized plasma of the remnant is electron-electron collisions. For an electron temperature of $`4\times 10^7`$ K and density of 20 cm-3, the loss time of a 100 keV electron is $``$200 yr, rapidly increasing to $``$500 yr for 200 keV (Huba, 1994). These loss times are comparable to or larger than the average plasma age of Cas A, indicating that non-adiabatic losses are likely to be small.

The synchrotron flux density for a relativistic electron power law distribution, with energy index $`q`$, is given by (Blumenthal & Gould, 1970):

$$F_\nu =1.70\times 10^{21}a(q)\frac{\kappa V}{4\pi d^2}B^{\frac{q+1}{2}}(\frac{\mathrm{6.26\; 10}^{18}}{\nu })^{\frac{q1}{2}}$$
(2)
where $`\kappa `$ is the particle normalization, $`V`$ the emitting volume, $`d`$ the distance, $`B`$ the magnetic field, and $`a(q)`$ is a factor tabulated in Blumenthal & Gould (1970).

Bremsstrahlung from the same population of electrons, which flattens at non-relativistic energies, scales with the factor $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_in_iZ_i^2\kappa V/4\pi d^2`$, where $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_in_iZ_i^2`$ indicates the sum of densities of all the ion species with charge $`Z_i`$. So from the combination of synchrotron emission and bremsstrahlung, and an estimate of $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_in_iZ_i^2`$, we can estimate $`\kappa `$ and $`B`$.

The radio spectrum of Cas A has a spectral index of $`\alpha =0.78`$ and based on a compilation of radio data (e.g. Baars et al., 1977) we estimate a radio flux density of 2522 Jy at 1 GHz for the epoch 2000. The spectral index indicates an electron energy spectrum with $`q=2.56`$ at relativistic energies and flattening to 1.77 at non-relativistic energies, resulting in an X-ray photon index of -2.2. This is at odds with the observed spectral index of -3.3, which means that 100 keV must have a different origin, taken here to be bremsstrahlung from LHW accelerated electrons. We adopt the LHW model, and try to obtain an upper limit on the emission from an additional component with a power law slope of -2.2 from the combined BeppoSAX and CGRO-OSSE data (Fig. 4).

The best fit normalization for such a power law spectrum is $`(4.0\pm 1.5)\times 10^7`$ ph s-1keV-1cm-2 at 100 keV, with a 2$`\sigma `$ upper limit of $`6.2\times 10^7`$ ph s-1keV-1cm-2. We measured the electron spectrum normalization more directly by fitting a model of bremsstrahlung from a relativistically correct power law momentum spectrum, using the gaunt factors proposed by Haug (1997). The upper limit on the bremsstrahlung normalization obtained this way is $`\kappa \mathrm{\Sigma }_in_iZ_i^2V/4\pi d^2<65`$. Soft X-ray observations imply $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_in_iZ_i^220`$ (Vink et al., 1996; Willingale et al., 2001b), which, combined with the bremsstrahlung normalization, gives for the average magnetic field $`B>0.5`$ mG.333This replaces the value reported in Vink & Laming (2002), in which we missed a factor $`4\pi `$ in the synchrotron normalization (eq. 2, c.f. Ginzburg & Syrovatski, 1965). This is higher than the value derived by Atoyan et al. (2000) from the CGRO-EGRET upper limit, especially taking into account that they assumed a higher value for $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_in_iZ_i^2`$. Note that the above lower limit is not a volume average, but based on the ratio $`<\kappa B^{(q+1)/2}>/<\kappa \mathrm{\Sigma }_in_iZ_i^2>`$. The derived lower limit is in good agreement with equipartition of magnetic and cosmic ray energy.

## 5 The magnetic field near the shock front

The high average magnetic field in Cas A is inconsistent with simple shock compression of the interstellar magnetic field, and indicates that the magnetic field inside the remnant must have been enhanced by turbulence. A likely place for turbulence is the contact discontinuity, which may explain why the radio emission has a bright ring of emission, as this is the region in the remnant where magnetic field amplification is important. A similar argument was used by Anderson & Rudnick (1996) to explain why radio knots have the same radio spectral index as the surrounding diffuse emission; the enhanced magnetic field lights up the background electron population. One may wonder then, what the initial interstellar magnetic field was, before turbulent magnetic field amplification.

An estimate can be derived from the observation of the shock front of Cas A by Chandra. In the X-ray continuum band from roughly 4.5-6 keV Cas A seems bound by a narrow rim of emission, which marks the onset of radio emission. The narrowness of the rim indicates strong limb brightening of a layer, which much have some special emission properties. The fact that the radio and X-ray morphology are dissimilar as far as this rim is concerned, seems to argue against a synchrotron origin for the X-ray emission, see e.g. Gotthelf et al. (2001). But this is not true, if the width of the rim is a result of the limited lifetime of the ultra-relativistic electrons, as soon as they are swept away from the shock front. Further inside the shock the maximum energy of the electrons has so much decreased that no X-ray synchrotron emission is produced anymore. This is not the case for the radio emission, caused by electrons with much lower energies, for which synchrotron and inverse Compton losses are negligible (e.g. Wright et al., 1999). This behavior can be seen in the models by Reynolds (1998), in which the synchrotron emitting shell is thinner at higher frequencies. The steady increase in radio emission toward the bright ring of emission may be the effect of accumulation of relativistic electrons swept away from the shock front, and a strong gradient of the magnetic field.

In this interpretation most of the electron populations, which reside outside the X-ray rims, have a maximum energy cut-off well below 1 TeV, unless reacceleration is important. However, radio spectral index measurements do not indicate any reacceleration of electrons by ejecta knots, which would likely lead to different indices of radio knots and diffuse emission (Anderson & Rudnick, 1996). Note that this argues also against the use for Cas A of the simple maximum curved synchrotron model employed by Reynolds & Keohane (1999), which merely assumes that all electron populations have the same energy cut-off, and the magnetic field is constant.

The rim is much narrower than the $``$1/12th shock radius expected for plasma shocked with a factor 4 compression ratio. That they are indeed consistent with X-ray synchrotron emission can be exemplified by a comparison of the X-ray continuum flux and radio flux of part of the rim in the northeast (see Fig. 1, and Table 2). We used archival Chandra data to obtain a spectrum from this filament and determined that the X-ray continuum flux between 4 and 6 keV is $`1.0\times 10^{12}`$ erg s-1cm-2 ($`2.1\times 10^7`$ Jy at $`1.2\times 10^{18}`$ Hz). We normalized an archival VLA radio map (epoch 1987) to a flux of 2522 Jy and extracted a flux density from the same region. As the shock front may have moved between 1987 and 2001 by as much as 5″, we extracted also a flux from the same region, but moved 5″ toward the center of the remnant. This yielded a flux density estimate between 3 Jy and 6 Jy at 1 GHz, corresponding to a broad band spectral index of $`\alpha =1.15`$ (the factor two uncertainty in flux density is irrelevant over a frequency range of 9 decades). This is steeper than the radio spectral index of 0.78 and thus indicates that the X-ray flux density is below the extrapolation of the radio spectrum; consistent with the interpretation that part of the X-ray emission is synchrotron emission.

Indeed, not all X-ray emission is synchrotron, as the narrow rim displays line emission from Mg, Si and S, which should be accompanied by bremsstrahlung as well. The line emission from the rim is, however, weaker and the spectrum harder, than for the spectrum of a region just inside of the rim (Table 2). For example fitting a thermal non equilibrium model with an additional power law gives a spectral index of -2.2, whereas away from the rim the spectral index is unconstrained, but steeper than -4. Moreover, it is hard to find another interpretation for the rim than synchrotron emission, as only energy losses can explain the narrow features. For a hot plasma the losses are small and the gradual ionization and possible equilibration of electrons and ions behind the shock would lead to a steady increase in intensity behind the shock, not in a sudden onset of emission, followed by a rapid decline.

Interestingly, identifying the rims with X-ray synchrotron emission from recently accelerated electrons makes this aspect of Cas A very similar to SN 1006, where the X-ray synchrotron emission is coming from a similarly narrow rim of emission, as shown by archival Chandra data. For SN 1006, however, the continuum emission from the rims are dominating the total continuum emission, whereas for Cas A the X-ray continuum morphology shows that a substantial fraction of the X-ray continuum is associated with the bright ejecta shell. In SN 1006 the synchrotron emission comes mainly from the northeastern and southwestern limb, which is usually interpreted as caused by the large scale orientation of the magnetic field (Reynolds, 1998). For Cas A, however, we do not see such axi-symmetry. This implies a much more randomly oriented magnetic field in the surrounding medium.

Assuming that the limb brightened rim emits indeed X-ray synchrotron radiation, we can derive from the typical width of the rim the magnetic field behind the shock front and the typical electron energy responsible for the synchrotron radiation. The electron energy may be associated with the typical exponential cut-off energy of the electron spectrum, but the very nature of the losses make it likely that a range of cut-off values exist. In an equilibrium situation synchrotron and inverse Compton losses will steepen the spectrum by a $`\mathrm{\Delta }q=1`$ (Longair, 1994), but as soon as the electrons are sufficiently far removed from the shock front the spectrum is more likely to have an exponential cutoff. An exponential cut off is also more likely, if the spectrum near the shock front is age limited instead of loss limited (Reynolds, 1998).

The rims have a typical width of 1.5″-4″ and clearly stand out above the background and diffuse emission (Fig. 5). We can estimate a typical loss time from the widths by combining them with the plasma velocity away from the shock front. The shock velocity in Cas A has been estimated from proper motion studies using Einstein and ROSAT HRI X-ray images, and is thought to be $`v_s=5200`$ km s-1 (Vink et al., 1998). The velocity of plasma away from the shock front, for a standard shock compression ratio of 4, is 0.25$`v_s=1300`$ km s-1. This value is consistent with X-ray Doppler shifts, which imply a velocity relative to the shock front of $`\mathrm{\Delta }v1400`$ km/s (Willingale et al., 2001a). For a distance of 3.4 kpc the measured widths of the rims correspond to a typical loss time of 18 to 50 yr.

The energy history of an electron with initial energy $`E_0`$, suffering synchrotron losses, is:

$$E(t)=\frac{E_0}{1+E_0B^2t/635}.$$
(3)
After a time $`\tau `$ (eq.1), the electron will have an energy $`\frac{1}{2}E_0`$, whereas higher energy electrons, after the same amount of time, will have energies $`E^{}(\tau )E_0`$. The relation between the peak emitting frequency and electron energy is given by (Ginzburg & Syrovatski, 1965):

$$\nu _{peak}=1.8\times 10^{18}B_{}E^2.$$
(4)
In reality we have to take into account a range of frequencies, as the the synchrotron emission function is broad.

The rim is best visible in the X-ray continuum dominated band of 4-6 keV, and in some narrow bands in between line emission features. Taking 5 keV ($`1.2\times 10^{18}`$ Hz) as the typical photon energy, we can combine eq. 4 with eq. 1 to obtain a typical electron energy of $`E=65`$ erg to $`91`$ erg and $`B=0.16`$ mG to $`0.08`$ mG. The power slope of the Chandra spectrum near the shock is $`2.2`$, which indicates that the photons are emitted by electrons close to the break in the electron distribution. In fact using the the srcut-model (cf. §3), we derive for $`B=0.1`$ mG, $`E_{break}25`$ erg. However, the spectrum is likely to be an integration of spectra with different break energies. So close to the shock front $`E_{break}`$ is likely to be higher.

In Fig. 5 we have illustrated our estimates of magnetic field strength and electron energy graphically. Apart from synchrotron losses we also have included inverse Compton losses. For this we have estimated the photon energy density from the cosmic microwave background and the far infrared emission from Cas A itself, the latter being the most dominant factor. From the IRAS infrared fluxes listed by Braun (1987) we estimate a photon energy density of $`u=4.7\times 10^{12}`$ erg cm-3 , corresponding to an equivalent magnetic field of $`B=1.1\times 10^4`$ G.

The estimates of the magnetic field near the shock front give values of roughly a fifth of the average magnetic field strength and indicate a preshock magnetic field of $`24\times 10^5`$, a factor ten higher than the canonical interstellar medium value. This may either hint at a higher magnetic field surrounding Cas A, for instance because the wind of the Wolf-Rayet progenitor carried a high magnetic field, or the presence of accelerated particles near the shock front has given rise to magnetic field amplification due to non-linear plasma wave growth. The first hypothesis was suggested by Biermann & Cassinelli (1993) in order to explain the acceleration of cosmic ray by supernova remnants up to $`10^{16}`$ eV for which high magnetic fields are necessary. The second hypothesis was suggested by Lucek & Bell (2000) for identical reasons.

## 6 The magnetic field strength and the nature of the TeV emission

The measured magnetic field strengths have important consequences for the gamma ray emission from Cas A. For instance, our lower limit on the average magnetic field strength implies that the gamma ray emission from bremsstrahlung is almost an order of magnitude below the CGRO-EGRET upper limit.

It is also understood that for the high magnetic field in Cas A, it is unlikely that the detected TeV emission is inverse Compton emission (Aharonian et al., 2001; Atoyan et al., 2000). We have investigated this important issue by constructing a two zone model. Zone 1 is responsible for the bulk of the radio emission, such as the bright radio ring. It should have $`B>0.5`$ mG according to lower limit on the magnetic field. As the electron population in this zone is old, no X-ray synchrotron emission is produced. We adopt a somewhat arbitrary maximum electron energy of 0.1 TeV, but in reality a range of values exist inside the remnant The inverse Compton emission from this zone is negligible.

Zone 2 is responsible for the X-ray synchrotron emission from the rim and has $`B0.080.16`$ mG and $`E_{max}4060`$ TeV. Based on our flux measurements, and assuming spherical symmetry, we estimate that the X-ray synchrotron emission should be less than one third of the X-ray emission around 5 keV, but as we focused on a particular bright part of the rim, 1/10th to 1/20th seem more likely values. Moreover, for $`B=0.08`$ mG and an X-ray synchrotron flux contribution of 1/3rd, the non-thermal bremsstrahlung flux at 100 keV is above the measured upper limit. This criterion is relaxed for higher magnetic fields near the shock front.

This two zone model is different from the two zone model proposed by Atoyan et al. (2000), for which the two zones relate to the radio knots and diffuse radio emission. We adopt here the view of Anderson & Rudnick (1996), that there are no intrinsic differences between the electron cosmic ray populations of the radio knots and the diffuse emission, except that in the radio knots the magnetic field is stronger. Note that the electron cosmic ray density is higher in zone 2. Zone 1 is brighter at radio wavelength due to the stronger magnetic field.

In order to estimate the inverse Compton emission we need to estimate the photon density caused by Cas A’s far infrared emission. IRAS flux measurements (Braun, 1987) indicate a total photon flux of $`F_{ph}=3.9\times 10^5`$ ph s-1 cm-2, centered around $`10^{13}`$ Hz. The far infrared emission is associated with ejecta (Lagage et al., 1996). Approximating the geometry by a sphere with radius similar to the ejecta, $`r=1.8`$ pc, and assuming that half the number of photons spend an average time of $`r/c`$ inside the sphere, we obtain for the photon density444The other half of the photons escape directly, but all photons will have to pass through zone 2.:

$$n_{ph}=\frac{3}{2}\frac{d^2}{r^2}\frac{F_{ph}}{c}=72\mathrm{cm}^3,$$
(5)
where $`d=3.4`$ kpc is the distance to Cas A. A similar reasoning gives a somewhat lower photon density for zone 2, but the photon field is much more anisotropic, on average coming from the direction of the remnant’s center. For the spherical symmetry assumed, the anisotropy has no influence on the total inverse Compton emission, but as the maximum upscattering occurs for head on collisions, most energetic inverse Compton emission from zone 2 will be directed toward the center of the remnant, giving rise to a centrally brightened morphology, despite the fact that according to our model the dominant inverse Compton emission is coming from a narrow shell near the shock front. In contrast, bremsstrahlung from the same electron population will show a ring-like morphology. Unfortunately, these interesting differences in morphology occur on the scale of arcminutes, which is currently beyond the reach of gamma-ray instruments.

Our two zone model is illustrated in Fig. 6, employing typical values for $`B`$ and $`E_{break}`$ near the shock front. The inverse Compton emission is completely dominated by the electrons in zone 2. In Fig. 6 inverse Compton emission is well below the TeV flux by HEGRA. It is therefore likely that the TeV emission is dominated by pion decay. However, we cannot yet make a definitive statement regarding the inverse Compton emission. For lower values of the magnetic field zone 2 is also the dominant source of bremsstrahlung by relativistic electrons. If the magnetic field is at the low end of our inferred magnetic field, $`B=0.08`$ mG, and the far infrared photon density is larger than 150 cm-3, the HEGRA detection, and the BeppoSAX/CGRO-OSSE upper limit on the non-thermal bremsstrahlung are still consistent with inverse Compton emission. The basic uncertainty in the photon density stems from the uncertain geometry, which for zone 2 may also include anisotropic photon emission. The combination of a low magnetic field and a rather high infrared photon density seems unlikely, but is not impossible. Even lower magnetic fields in zone 2 are unlikely, as the non-thermal bremsstrahlung would exceed the upper limit reported in §3.

## 7 Conclusion

We have provided estimates of the average magnetic field and the magnetic field near the shock front. The lower limit to the average magnetic field is based on the assumption that the electron spectrum follows a power law distribution in momentum, or is steeper than that at energies between 100-1000 keV.

The magnetic field strength near the shock front, was measured from the width of the narrow rim surrounding Cas A in X-ray continuum images, assuming that the emission mechanism is synchrotron emission, and the width is determined by synchrotron losses. The contribution of the X-ray synchrotron emission to the X-ray continuum flux is less than one third. This is supported by the X-ray morphology, which shows that even around 10 keV a substantial part of the continuum is associated with the bright ejecta shell (Bleeker et al., 2001).

This justifies taking into consideration alternative models than synchrotron radiation for the hard X-ray emission of Cas A. This is was done in §2, where we tested the lower hybrid wave model. The bremsstrahlung spectrum predicted for electrons accelerated by lower hybrid waves has a similar spectral slope as is observed. The maximum energy to which the electrons are accelerated by this mechanism is $``$95 keV, according to fits to the BeppoSAX data.

The estimated lower limit on the average magnetic field is 0.5 mG, whereas we find $`0.1`$ mG near the shock front. So even near the shock front the magnetic field strength is an order of magnitude above what is expected from shock compression of the canonical interstellar magnetic field of 3 $`\mu `$G. This can be explained by either a higher magnetic field strength in the medium surrounding Cas A, possibly as the result of the stellar wind of the progenitor (Biermann & Cassinelli, 1993), or it means that the magnetic field is being rapidly enhanced near the shock front (Lucek & Bell, 2000).

Electron energies close to the shock front may reach $``$50 TeV or higher, but in contrast to Reynolds & Keohane (1999), we suggest that most of the cosmic ray electrons responsible for the bright radio ring are in an environment with a high magnetic field, where due to synchrotron losses the the cut-off energy is well below the energy where X-ray synchrotron emission can be expected.

The high average magnetic field makes it likely that TeV emission from Cas A is dominated by pion decay (Atoyan et al., 2000), but there is some uncertainty, as in our two zone model of Cas A it is still possible to obtain a high inverse Compton flux by assuming that the magnetic field is at the low end of what we have inferred from the X-ray rims, $`B=0.08`$ mG, and using a higher far infrared photon density of 150 cm-3.

Future mission will improve on those results. For instance, GLAST will probably be able to detect bremsstrahlung in the GeV range, which will provide a much more direct way of estimating the average magnetic field of Cas A.

As for the hard X-ray emission. INTEGRAL will not greatly improve the current measurement of the hard X-ray continuum emission, but by accurately measuring the 44Ti related line emission, it will constrain that component of the emission around 80 keV, and thus indirectly improve our understanding of the continuum emission around 100 keV.

One of the consequences of our analysis is that the gamma-ray emission will be mostly associated with the outer rim of Cas A, not with the bright X-ray and radio shell. Unfortunately, the spatial resolution required to measure this will not be available in the near future.

Finally, as an interesting by product of our analysis, we mention that the new modeling of the hard X-ray emission with the lower hybrid model yields revised values of the 44Sc line emission at 68 keV and 78 keV, which correspond to a 50% higher mass of 44Ti synthesized in the explosion compared to what was reported by Vink et al. (2001), i.e. $`M(^{44}\mathrm{Ti})=1.8\times 10^4`$ M. This is closer to the latest CGRO-COMPTEL measurements (Schönfelder et al., 2000).

JV was supported for this work by the NASA through Chandra Postdoctoral Fellowship Award Number PF0-10011 issued by the Chandra X-ray Observatory Center (CXO), which is operated by the Smithonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) for and on behalf of NASA under contract NAS8-39073. JML was supported by basic research funds of the Office of Naval Research. We acknowledge the use of the HEASARC (Goddard Space Flight Center), CXO (SAO), and NCSA Astronomy Digital Image Library archival facilities.

## Appendix A Appendix

In this appendix we want to demonstrate how free parameters in the fit of the model continuum (the maximum accelerated electron energy and the fraction of ambient electrons that are accelerated) are in principle determined by the plasma physics parameters of Cas A. The maximum electron energy is related to the maximum electric field that a lower hybrid wave can develop and the time that an electron can spend in this field, governed by the thickness of the shock precursor. The fraction of electrons that may be accelerated is expected to be determined by a marginal stability criterion, i.e. the electrons will be accelerated until the heating of the ambient plasma produced by Coulomb colisions of the accelerated electrons violates the conditions necessary for lower hybrid waves to exist, i.e. that the electron gyroradius be less than the wavelength divided by $`2\pi `$.

The lower hybrid waves are generated by cross field ion motions produced by shocks. A fraction of preshock ions are reflected back upstream ahead of the shock with a velocity relative to the preshock plasma of $`2v_s`$, where $`v_s`$ is the shock velocity. Ions reflected initially back along the shock velocity vector at a perpendicular shock travel a distance $`0.68v_s/\mathrm{\Omega }_i`$ before returning (Gedalin, 1996). Here $`\mathrm{\Omega }_i`$ is the ion gyrofrequency. The maximum distance ahead of the shock that reflected ions can reach is $`d=1.37v_s/\mathrm{\Omega }_i`$. This obtains for ions reflected from the shock at an angle $`30^{}`$ to the shock front, so that $`2v_s\mathrm{sin}30^{}=v_s`$.

Consider a shock front at an angle $`\theta `$ to the local magnetic field direction. In order for the lower-hybrid waves generated ahead of the shock by the reflected ion precursor to grow to large amplitudes we require (Laming, 2001b, i.e. the wave group velocity away from the shock is equal to the shock velocity, so that the time available for wave growth is essentially unlimited on the timescale of these processes)

$$\frac{\omega }{k_{}}=\frac{v_s}{\mathrm{cos}\theta }=\frac{\alpha \omega }{k}$$
(A1)
where $`\alpha =1/\left(2\mathrm{cos}\beta \mathrm{cos}\theta \right)`$ and $`\beta `$ is the angle between $`\omega /\stackrel{}{k}`$ and the reflected ion bulk velocity vector $`\stackrel{}{U}`$. A minimum requirement for wave growth is $`1<\alpha <1/2`$. Since it is ions returning to the shock that can generate the necessary waves, waves generated at the earliest possible period in the reflected ion orbit, i.e. lowest value of $`\left|\mathrm{cos}\beta \right|`$, when $`\alpha 1`$, (for $`\mathrm{cos}\theta 1`$) will dominate the growth.

The maximum electric field that the lower hybrid wave may develop before ion trapping and heating set is given by Karney (1978, in mks units);

$$E=B\left(\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }_i}{\omega }\right)^{1/3}\frac{\omega }{4k_{}}B\left(\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }_i}{\omega }\right)^{1/3}\frac{v_s}{4\mathrm{cos}\theta }.$$
(A2)
Taking the wave frequency $`\omega =\mathrm{\Omega }_{LH}=\sqrt{\mathrm{\Omega }_i\mathrm{\Omega }_e}`$, and the component of the electric field directed along the magnetic field direction to be $`E\omega _{pi}/\omega _{pe}`$ gives $`a\mathrm{\Omega }_{LH}v_s/16\mathrm{cos}\theta `$ for electron acceleration along the magnetic field direction. $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{LH}`$ is the geometric mean of the ion and electron gyrofrequencies and is known as the lower hybrid frequency.

We treat the case of a nonrelativistic shock which may accelerate electrons to relativistic energies. We work in the rest frame of the preshock medium. In this frame an electron is accelerated by the component of the electric field directed along the magnetic field, until it outruns the reflected ion shock precursor a distance $`d`$ from the shock front. Assuming acceleration begins with the electron at the shock front moving along $`\stackrel{}{B}`$ with initial velocity $`v_0`$, it will continue for a time $`t`$ given by

$$\left\{\frac{c^2}{a}\sqrt{1+\frac{\left(at+v_0/\sqrt{1v_0^2/c^2}\right)^2}{c^2}}\frac{c^2}{a\sqrt{1v_0^2/c^2}}\right\}\mathrm{sin}\theta =d+v_st.$$
(A3)
which gives a quadratic equation for $`t`$:

$$t^2\left(c^2\mathrm{sin}^2\theta v_s^2\right)+t\left\{\frac{2c^2}{a\sqrt{1v_0^2/c^2}}\left(v_0\mathrm{sin}^2\theta v_s\mathrm{sin}\theta \right)2dv_s\right\}d^2\frac{2dc^2\mathrm{sin}\theta }{a\sqrt{1v_0^2/c^2}}=0$$
(A4)
We require $`\mathrm{sin}\theta v_s/v_0`$ in order that the electron stays ahead of the shock front, and maximum acceleration time will be realized for $`\mathrm{sin}\theta =v_s/v_0`$. In this case $`\mathrm{cos}\theta 1`$ and the term in $`t`$ in equation A4 simplifies to $`2dv_st`$ and

$$t=\frac{d}{v_s\left(c^2/v_0^21\right)}\left\{1+\sqrt{1+\left(c^2/v_0^21\right)\left(1+\frac{2c^2}{adv_0v_s\sqrt{1v_0^2/c^2}}\right)}\right\}.$$
(A5)
For $`v_0<<c`$, $`at=\sqrt{2adv_0/v_s}`$ and for $`v_0c`$, $`at=2ad/vs\left(c^2/v_0^21\right)`$. Since $`adv_s^2`$ it is easy to see that the highest electron energies are most efficiently reached by fast shocks in hot plasma, i.e. for the highest plausible values of $`v_s`$ and $`v_0`$ in Cas A. At $`\mathrm{sin}\theta =v_s/v_0`$, three to four shock interactions are required to accelerate electrons to the observed maximum energy of $`95`$ keV, increasing to about ten shock interactions if $`\mathrm{sin}\theta =1.2v_s/v_0`$, for $`v_s=3000`$ km s-1 and $`v_0=3\times 10^9`$ cm s-1 (corresponding to an electron temperature of $`4\times 10^7`$ K). Even faster shock require fewer interactions. The maximum energy in the accelerated electron distribution will be determined by the number and obliquity of shock interactions experienced by these electrons during the evolution of Cas A, and so for the time being remains uncertain. However the maximum energy inferred from Fig. 1 is certainly plausible in these terms. In principle, given enough shock interactions, relativistic electrons can be produced. If a means of transporting these electrons to the forward shock were available, this might have a bearing on providing an injection mechanism for further electron acceleration by a Fermi mechanism.

The normalization of the non-thermal bremsstrahlung spectrum is determined by the fraction of plasma electrons that are accelerated in this way, and this will be determined ultimately by a marginal stability criterion. The instability requires the electron gyroradius to be less than the wavelength divided by $`2\pi `$, and once a sufficient number of electrons are accelerated to heat the ambient plasma to temperatures higher than this, the instability will shut down. The ambient plasma loses energy through radiation, adiabatic expansion and possibly conduction. In Laming (2001b) the heating rate due to the observed accelerated electrons is estimated to be $`4\times 10^{18}n_en_e^{}`$ ergs cm-3s-1 for ambient and accelerated electron densities $`n_e`$ and $`n_e^{}`$. The electron heating rate is $`dT/dt=0.019n_e^{}`$ K s-1, and equating this to the cooling rate by adiabatic expansion of the Cas A remnant yields an accelerated electron fraction $`n_e^{}/n_e0.02`$. The inclusion of ionization and radiative power losses and relaxing the steady-state assumption inherent in this estimate will allow higher accelerated electron fractions.

In Laming (2001b) an accelerated electron fraction of 4% was found to give a good match to the $`50`$ ksec of BeppoSAX MECS and PDS data on Cas A then available. The estimate herein using only the $`500`$ ksec PDS data is higher at around 10% (see Fig. 1), but a range of plasma temperatures exists in Cas A (c.f. Vink et al., 1996; Willingale et al., 2001a), and only the hottest plasma with a temperature of $`4\times 10^7`$ K contributes to the PDS bandpass. So with respect to all the hot plasma, an accelerated electron fraction of $``$4% is consistent with the data, and preferred on theoretical grounds. Simulations of the evolution of the electron temperature following electron heating indicate that such an accelerated electron density heats plasma in the location of the contact discontinuity to temperatures in the range $`45\times 10^7`$ K. These temperatures are basically constant over the past $`30`$ years over which X-ray observations have been made. In this respect simulations of Cas A expanding into an $`\rho 1/r^2`$ circumstellar medium appear to represent the physics much better than the simulations using a uniform density circumstellar medium in Laming (2001b).