2019ApJ...874...98Z

Cassiopeia A, a well-observed young core-collapse supernova remnant (SNR), is considered to be one of the best candidates for studying very high-energy particle acceleration up to PeV via the diffusive shock mechanism. Recently, MAGIC observations revealed a γ-ray spectral cutoff at ∼3.5TeV, suggesting that if the TeV γ-rays have a hadronic origin, SNR Cas A can only accelerate particles to tens of TeV. Here, we propose a two-zone emission model for regions associated with the forward (zone 1) and inward/reverse shocks (zone 2). Given the low density in zone 1, it dominates the high-frequency radio emission, soft X-ray rim via the synchrotron process, and TeV γ-ray via the inverse Comptonization. With a relatively softer particle distribution and a higher cutoff energy for electrons, emissions from zone 2 dominate the low-frequency radio, hard X-ray via the synchrotron process and GeV γ-ray via hadronic processes. There is no evidence for high-energy cutoffs in the proton distributions implying that Cas A can still be a PeVatron. Hadronic processes from zone 1 dominate very high-energy gamma-ray emission. Future observations in the hundreds of TeV range can test this model.