2013ApJ...763...14B

The nature of the recently detected high-energy and very high-energy γ-ray emission of Tycho's supernova remnant (SNR) is studied. A nonlinear kinetic theory of cosmic-ray (CR) acceleration in SNRs is employed to investigate the properties of Tycho's SNR and their correspondence with the existing experimental data, taking into account that the ambient interstellar medium (ISM) is expected to be clumpy. It is demonstrated that the overall steep γ-ray spectrum observed can be interpreted as the superposition of two spectra produced by the CR proton component in two different ISM phases: the first γ-ray component, extending up to about 10¹⁴ eV, originates in the diluted warm ISM, whereas the second component, extending up to 100 GeV, comes from numerous dense, small-scale clouds embedded in this warm ISM. Given the consistency between acceleration theory and the observed properties of the nonthermal emission of Tycho's SNR, very efficient production of nuclear CRs in Tycho's SNR is established. The excess of the GeV γ-ray emission due to the clouds' contribution above the level expected in the case of a purely homogeneous ISM is inevitably expected in the case of Type Ia SNe.