Synchro-curvature self-Compton radiation of electrons in curved magnetic fields

Abstract

In this paper, we present the spectrum of the synchro-curvature self-Compton radiation of relativistic electrons with a power-law distribution of Lorentz factors. We find that the resulting spectrum is significantly different from that of either the synchrotron self-Compton or the curvature self-Compton radiation if both the curvature radius of the magnetic field and the cyclotron radius of the electrons are within some proper ranges. The effects of electrons' cooling and drifting, the low-energy self-absorption in seed spectra and the Klein-Nishina cut-off are also discussed in order to get an accurate picture. We take gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) as our example environment for discussions. The results would be considered as a universal approach of the self-Compton emission of relativistic electrons moving in curved magnetic fields and thus could be applied to many astrophysical phenomena, including GRBs, active galactic nuclei and pulsars. © 2011 The Authors Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society © 2011 RAS.