Energetic non-thermal process in galactic objects and ground-based gamma-ray astronomy

Abstract

Very high energy γ-rays at TeV energies so far have been detected from pulsar nebula, supernova remnants and active galactic nuclei, and explained by the emission of the electron and positron progenitor. The copious production of the energetic, nonthermal electrons and positrons generally implies an intense radiation field in the source region and a considerable amount of optical depth for high energy γ-rays to affect their energy spectrum. The possibility of new classes of γ-ray sources at TeV energies are also argued in relevance to cosmic rays.