On the Hadronic Gamma-ray Emission from Tycho's Supernova Remnant
  Hadronic gamma-ray emission from supernova remnants (SNRs) is an important tool to test shock acceleration of cosmic ray protons. Tycho is one of nearly a dozen Galactic SNRs which are suggested to emit hadronic gamma-ray emission. Among them, however, it is the only one in which the hadronic emission is proposed to arise from the interaction with low-density (~0.3 cm^{-3}) ambient medium. Here we present an alternative hadronic explanation with a modest conversion efficiency (of order 1%) for this young remnant. With such an efficiency, a normal electron-proton ratio (of order 10^{-2}) is derived from the radio and X-ray synchrotron spectra and an average ambient density that is at least one-order-of-magnitude higher is derived from the hadronic gamma-ray flux. This result is consistent with the multi-band evidence of the presence of dense medium from the north to the east of the Tycho SNR. The SNR-cloud association, in combination with the HI absorption data, helps to constrain the so-far controversial distance to Tycho and leads to an estimate of 2.5 kpc. 
Xiao Zhang (1), Yang Chen (1), Hui Li (1), Xin Zhou (2) ((1) Nanjing   University, (2) Purple Mountain Observatory)
astro-ph.HE astro-ph.GA