arXiv subjects

Tatsuo Yoshida

Publications and source records attributed to Tatsuo Yoshida.

12 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2017

Prototyping Hexagonal Light Concentrators Using High-Reflectance Specular Films for the Large-Sized Telescopes of the Cherenkov Telescope Array

We have developed a prototype hexagonal light concentrator for the Large-Sized Telescopes of the Cherenkov Telescope Array. To maximize the photodetection efficiency of the focal-plane camera pixels for atmospheric Cherenkov photons and to lower the energy threshold, a specular film with a very high reflectance of 92-99% has been developed to cover the inner surfaces of the light concentrators. The prototype has a relative anode sensitivity (which can be roughly regarded as collection efficiency) of about 95 to 105% at the most important angles of incidence. The design, simulation, production procedure, and performance measurements of the light-concentrator prototype are reported.

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arXiv2017

Constraints on Physical Conditions for the Acceleration on Ultra-high-energy Cosmic Rays in Nearby Active Galactic Nuclei Observed with the Fermi Large Area Telescope

We investigated the possibility of acceleration of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) in nearby active galactic nuclei (AGNs) using archival multi-wavelength observational data, and then we constrained their physical conditions, i.e., the luminosity of the synchrotron radiation and the size of the acceleration site. First, we investigated the spatial correlation between the arrival directions of UHECRs and the positions of nearby AGNs in the Fermi third gamma-ray source catalog. We selected 27 AGNs as candidates of accelerators of UHECRs. Then, we evaluated the physical conditions in the acceleration regions of these AGNs via the Pe'er and Loeb method, which uses the peak luminosity of synchrotron radiation and the peak flux ratio of inverse Compton scattering to synchrotron radiation. From the evaluation, we found that six AGNs have the ability to accelerate ultra-high-energy protons in the AGN cores. Furthermore, we found that the minimum acceleration size must be more than a few kpc for acceleration of UHE protons in the AGN lobes.

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arXiv2017

A Monte Carlo simulation study for cosmic-ray chemical composition measurement with Cherenkov Telescope Array

Our Galaxy is filled with cosmic-ray particles and more than 98% of them are atomic nuclei. In order to clarify their origin and acceleration mechanism, chemical composition measurements of these cosmic rays with wide energy coverage play an important role. Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescope (IACT) arrays are designed to detect cosmic gamma-rays in the very-high-energy regime ($\sim$TeV). Recently these systems proved to be capable of measuring cosmic-ray chemical composition in the sub-PeV region by capturing direct Cherenkov photons emitted by charged primary particles. Extensive air shower profiles measured by IACTs also contain information about the primary particle type since the cross section of inelastic scattering in the air depends on the primary mass number. The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) is the next generation IACT system, which will consist of multiple types of telescopes and have a km$^2$-scale footprint and extended energy coverage (20 GeV to 300 TeV). In order to estimate CTA potential for cosmic ray composition measurement, a full Monte Carlo simulation including a description of extensive air shower and detector response is needed. We generated a number of cosmic-ray nuclei events (8 types selected from H to Fe) for a specific CTA layout candidate in the southern-hemisphere site. We applied Direct Cherenkov event selection and shower profile analysis to these data and preliminary results on charge number resolution and expected event count rate for these cosmic-ray nuclei are presented.

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arXiv2015

Prototyping of Hexagonal Light Concentrators for the Large-Sized Telescopes of the Cherenkov Telescope Array

Reflective light concentrators with hexagonal entrance and exit apertures are frequently used at the focal plane of gamma-ray telescopes in order to reduce the size of the dead area caused by the geometries of the photodetectors, as well as to reduce the amount of stray light entering at large field angles. The focal plane of the large-sized telescopes (LSTs) of the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) will also be covered by hexagonal light concentrators with an entrance diameter of 50 mm (side to side) to maximize the active area and the photon collection efficiency, enabling realization of a very low energy threshold of 20 GeV. We have developed a prototype of this LST light concentrator with an injection-molded plastic cone and a specular multilayer film. The shape of the plastic cone has been optimized with a cubic Bézier curve and a ray-tracing simulation. We have also developed a multilayer film with very high reflectance ($\gtrsim95$\%) along wide wavelength and angle coverage. The current status of the prototyping of these light concentrators is reported here.

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arXiv2015

Electron acceleration with improved Stochastic Differential Equation method: cutoff shape of electron distribution in test-particle limit

We develop a method of stochastic differential equation to simulate electron acceleration at astrophysical shocks. Our method is based on Itô's stochastic differential equations coupled with a particle splitting, employing a skew Brownian motion where an asymmetric shock crossing probability is considered. Using this code, we perform simulations of electron acceleration at stationary plane parallel shock with various parameter sets, and studied how the cutoff shape, which is characterized by cutoff shape parameter $a$, changes with the momentum dependence of the diffusion coefficient $β$. In the age-limited cases, we reproduce previous results of other authors, $a\approx2β$. In the cooling-limited cases, the analytical expectation $a\approxβ+1$ is roughly reproduced although we recognize deviations to some extent. In the case of escape-limited acceleration, numerical result fits analytical stationary solution well, but deviates from the previous asymptotic analytical formula $a\approxβ$.

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arXiv2006

Numerical studies on the structure of the cosmic ray electron halo in starburst galaxies

The structure of the cosmic ray electron halo of a starburst galaxy depends strongly on the nature of galactic wind and the configuration of the magnetic field. We have investigated these dependencies by solving numerically the propagation of electrons originating in starburst galaxies, most likely in supernova remnants. The calculations are made for several models for the galactic winds and for the configuration of the magnetic fields for comparison with observations. Our simulation of a quasi-radio halo reproduces both the extended structure of ~ 9 kpc and the subtle hollow structure near the polar region of the radio halo that are observed in the starburst galaxy NGC 253. These findings suggest the existence of strong galactic wind in NGC 253.

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arXiv2006

TeV Gamma-Rays from Old Supernova Remnants

We study the emission from an old supernova remnant (SNR) with an age of around 10^5 yrs and that from a giant molecular cloud (GMC) encountered by the SNR. When the SNR age is around 10^5 yrs, proton acceleration is efficient enough to emit TeV gamma-rays both at the shock of the SNR and that in the GMC. The maximum energy of primarily accelerated electrons is so small that TeV gamma-rays and X-rays are dominated by hadronic processes, pi^0-decay and synchrotron radiation from secondary electrons, respectively. However, if the SNR is older than several 10^5 yrs, there are few high-energy particles emitting TeV gamma-rays because of the energy loss effect and/or the wave damping effect occurring at low-velocity isothermal shocks. For old SNRs or SNR-GMC interacting systems capable of generating TeV gamma-ray emitting particles, we calculated the ratio of TeV gamma-ray (1-10 TeV) to X-ray (2-10 keV) energy flux and found that it can be more than ~10^2. Such a source showing large flux ratio may be a possible origin of recently discovered unidentified TeV sources.

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arXiv2005

Galactic modulation of extragalactic cosmic rays: Possible origin of the knee in the cosmic ray spectrum

The existence of the spectral break around $\sim 3 \times 10^{15}$ eV in the cosmic ray spectrum (referred to as the `knee') is one of the biggest questions in cosmic ray astrophysics. At the same time, the origin of cosmic rays above the knee energies (between 10$^{15}$ and 10$^{18}$ eV) is also still unsettled. In this paper, we investigate how the hypothetical extragalactic CRs after modulated by the galactic wind contribute to the knee in the CR spectrum. We numerically calculate the modulated energy spectrum of the hypothetical cosmic rays coming into the galaxy from just outside of the ``galactic sphere'' where the galactic wind terminates. We show that the observed knee structure is reproduced well by a superposition of the modulated component and the galactic cosmic rays originating in supernova remnants.

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arXiv2004

A Spatial and Spectral Study of Nonthermal Filaments in Historical Supernova Remnants: Observational Results with Chandra

The outer shells of young supernova remnants (SNRs) are the most plausible acceleration sites of high-energy electrons with the diffusive shock acceleration (DSA) mechanism. We studied spatial and spectral properties close to the shock fronts in four historical SNRs (Cas A, Kepler's remnant, Tycho's remnant, and RCW 86) with excellent spatial resolution of {\it Chandra}. In all of the SNRs, hard X-ray emissions were found on the rims of the SNRs, which concentrate in very narrow regions (so-called "filaments"); apparent scale widths on the upstream side are below or in the order of the point spread function of {\it Chandra}, while 0.5--40 arcsec (0.01--0.4 pc) on the downstream side with most reliable distances. The spectra of these filaments can be fitted with both thermal and nonthermal (power-law and {\tt SRCUT}) models. The former requires unrealistic high temperature ($\ga$2 keV) and low abundances ($\la$1 solar) for emission from young SNRs and may be thus unlikely. The latter reproduces the spectra with best-fit photon indices of 2.1--3.8, or roll-off frequencies of (0.1--28)$\times 10^{17}$ Hz, which reminds us of the synchrotron emission from electrons accelerated via DSA. We consider various physical parameters as functions of the SNR age, including the previous results on SN 1006 \citep{bamba2003b}; the filament width on the downstream side increases with the SNR age, and the spectrum becomes softer keeping a nonthermal feature. It was also found that a function, that is the roll-off frequency divided by the square of the scale width on the downstream side, shows negative correlation with the age, which might provide us some information on the DSA theory.

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arXiv2003

Constraints On the Diffusive Shock Acceleration From the Nonthermal X-ray Thin Shells In SN1006 NE Rim

Characteristic scale lengths of nonthermal X-rays from the SN1006 NE rim, which are observed by Chandra, are interpreted in the context of the diffusive shock acceleration on the assumption that the observed spatial profile of nonthermal X-rays corresponds to that of accelerated electrons with energies of a few tens of TeV. To explain the observed scale lengths, we construct two simple models with a test particle approximation, where the maximum energy of accelerated electrons is determined by the age of SN1006 (age-limited model) or the energy loss (energy loss-limited model), and constrain the magnetic field configuration and the diffusion coefficients of accelerated electrons. When the magnetic field is nearly parallel to the shock normal, the magnetic field should be in the range of 20-85 micro Gauss and highly turbulent both in upstream and downstream, which means that the mean free path of accelerated electrons is on the order of their gyro-radius (Bohm limit). This situation can be realized both in the age-limited and energy loss-limited model. On the other hand, when the magnetic field is nearly perpendicular to the shock normal, which can exist only in the age-limited case, the magnetic field is several micro Gauss in the upstream and 14-20 micro Gauss in the downstream, and the upstream magnetic field is less turbulent than the downstream.

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arXiv2003

Self-similar collapse with cooling and heating in an expanding universe

We derive self-similar solutions including cooling and heating in an Einstein de-Sitter universe, and investigate the effects of cooling and heating on the gas density and temperature distributions. We assume that the cooling rate has a power-law dependence on the gas density and temperature, $Λ$$\propto$$ρ^{A}T^{B}$, and the heating rate is $Γ$$\propto$$ρT$. The values of $A$ and $B$ are chosen by requiring that the cooling time is proportional to the Hubble time in order to obtain similarity solutions. In the region where the cooling rate is greater than the heating rate, a cooling inflow is established, and the gas is compressed and heats up. Because the compression is greater in the inner region than in the outer region, the temperature becomes an increasing profile toward the center. In particular, when a large infall velocity is produced due to an enormous energy loss, the slope of the density approaches a value that depends on $A$, $B$, and the velocity slope, and the slope of the temperature approaches $-$1. On the other hand, in the region where the heating rate is greater than the cooling rate, the infall velocity is suppressed, compression of the gas is weakened, and the gas cools down. The slope of the density becomes shallow due to suppression of the contraction, and the temperature is lower than that without heating. The self-similar collapse presented here gives insights to the effects of cooling and heating on the gas distributions in galaxies and clusters of galaxies.

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arXiv2003

High Accretion Rate during Class 0 Phase due to External Trigger

Recent observations indicate that some class 0 sources have orders of magnitude higher accretion rates than those of class I. We investigated the conditions for the high accretion rates of some class 0 sources by numerical calculations, modelling an external trigger. For no external trigger, we find that the maximum value of the accretion rate is determined by the ratio $α$ of the gravitational energy to the thermal one within a flat inner region of the cloud core. The accretion rate reaches $\sim 10^{-4} M_{\sun} yr^{-1}$ if the cloud core has $ α> 2$. For an external trigger we find that the maximum value of the accretion rate is proportional to the momentum given to the cloud core. The accretion rate reaches $ > 10^{-4} M_{\sun} yr^{-1}$ with a momentum of $\sim 0.1 M_{\sun} km s^{-1}$ when the initial central density of the cloud core is $\sim 10^{-18} g cm^{-3}$. A comparison between recent observational results for prestellar cores and our no triggered collapse model indicates that the flat inner regions of typical prestellar cores are not large enough to cause accretion rates of $\sim 10^{-4} M_{\sun} yr^{-1}$. Our results show that the triggered collapse of the cloud core is more preferable for the origin of the high accretion rates of class 0 sources than no triggered collapse.

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