Suzaku observation of TeV SNR RX J1713.7-3946

Abstract

We report on results from Suzaku broadband X-ray observations of the Galactic supernova remnant (SNR) RX J1713.7-3946 with an energy coverage of 0.4-40 keV. With a sensitive hard X-ray measurement from the HXD PIN on board Suzaku, we determine the hard X-ray spectrum in the 12-40 keV range to be described by a power law with photon index Γ = 3.2 ± 0.2, significantly steeper than the soft X-ray index of Γ = 2.4 ± 0.05 measured previously with ASCA and other missions. We find that a simple power law fails to describe the full spectral range of 0.4-40 keV and instead a cutoff power law with hard index Γ = 1.96 ± 0.05 and high energy cutoff εc = 9 ± 1 keV provides an excellent fit over the full bandpass.