New continuum and polarization observations of the Cygnus Loop with FAST I. Data processing and verification

We report on the continuum and polarization observations of the Cygnus Loop supernova remnant (SNR) conducted by the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST). FAST observations provide high angular resolution and high sensitivity images of the SNR, which will help to disentangle its nature. We obtained Stokes I, Q and U maps over the frequency range of 1.03 – 1.46 GHz split into channels of 7.63 kHz. The original angular resolution is in the range of ∼ 3 ′ − ∼ 3 ′ .8 , and we combined all the data at a common resolution of 4 ′ . The temperature scale of the total intensity and the spectral index from the in-band temperature-temperature plot are consistent with previous observations, which validates the data calibration and map-making procedures. The rms sensitivity for the band-averaged total-intensity map is about 20 mK in brightness temperature, which is at the level of confusion limit. For the first time, we apply rotation measure (RM) synthesis to the Cygnus Loop to obtain the polarization intensity and RM maps. The rms sensitivity for polarization is about 5 mK, far below the total-intensity confusion limit. We also obtained RMs of eight extragalactic sources, and demonstrate that the wide-band frequency coverage helps to overcome the ambiguity of RM determinations.

New high-frequency radio observations of the Cygnus Loop supernova remnant with the Italian radio telescopes

ABSTRACT Supernova remnants (SNRs) represent a powerful laboratory to study the cosmic ray acceleration processes at shocks, and their relation to the properties of the circumstellar medium. With the aim of studying the high-frequency radio emission and investigating the energy distribution of accelerated electrons and the magnetic field conditions, we performed single-dish observations of the large and complex Cygnus Loop SNR from 7.0–24.8 GHz with the Medicina and Sardinia Radio Telescopes, focusing on the northern filament (NGC 6992) and the southern shell. Both regions show a spectrum well fitted by a power-law function (S ∝ ν−α), with spectral index α = 0.45 ± 0.05 for NGC 6992 and α = 0.49 ± 0.01 for the southern shell and without any indication of a spectral break. The spectra are significantly flatter than the whole Cygnus Loop spectrum (α = 0.54 ± 0.01), suggesting a departure from the plain shock acceleration mechanisms, which for NGC 6992 could be related to the ongoing transition towards a radiative shock. We model the integrated spectrum of the whole SNR considering the evolution of the maximum energy and magnetic field amplification. Through the radio spectral parameters, we infer a magnetic field at the shock of 10 μG. This value is compatible with purely adiabatic compression of the interstellar magnetic field, suggesting that the amplification process is currently inefficient.