Regions of Suppressed Diffusion around Supernova Remnants?

Abstract

The recent discovery of the so-called TeV halos has attracted much attention. The morphology of the emission requires that the region is characterized by severe suppression of the diffusion coefficient. This finding raises many questions as to its origin: (1) is the suppressed diffusion to be attributed to instabilities induced by the same radiating particles? (2) or does it actually show that the diffusion coefficient is small throughout the disk of the Galaxy? In both cases, one would expect that the surroundings of supernova remnants (SNRs) should also show evidence of a reduced diffusion coefficient since most remnants are located in the disk and are expected to be sites of effective particle acceleration. Should we expect the existence of regions of extended γ-ray emission from these regions as well? Here, we investigate the transport of cosmic rays (CRs) that have escaped from SNRs in order to assess the viability of the idea of having a cocoon of suppressed diffusion around them. A comparison of our results with the γ-ray emission from the regions around HB9 and W28 does not provide solid evidence of reduced diffusivity. However, if indeed the phenomenon of reduced diffusivity occurs around SNRs surrounded by molecular clouds, our calculations show that the effects on the grammage of Galactic CRs can be significant.