Non-thermal emission from relativistic MHD simulations of pulsar wind nebulae: from synchrotron to inverse Compton

Aims: We develop a set of diagnostic tools for synchrotron-emitting sources, presented in a previous paper, to include a computation of inverse-Compton radiation from the same relativistic particles that give rise to the synchrotron emission. For the first time, we then study the gamma-ray emission properties of Pulsar Wind Nebulae, in the context of the axisymmetric jet-torus scenario.
Methods: We evolve the relativistic MHD equations and the maximum energy of the emitting particles, including adiabatic and synchrotron losses along streamlines. The particle energy distribution function is split into two components: one corresponds to radio-emitting electrons, which are interpreted to be a relic population that is born at the outburst of the supernova, and the other is associated with a wind population that is continuously accelerated at the termination shock and emits up to the gamma-ray band. The inverse Compton emissivity is calculated using the general Klein-Nishina differential cross-section and three different photon targets for the relativistic particles are considered: the nebular synchrotron photons, photons associated with the far-infrared thermal excess, and the cosmic microwave background.
Results: When the method is applied to the simulations that match the optical and X-ray morphology of the Crab Nebula, the overall synchrotron spectrum can only be fitted assuming an excess of injected particles and a steeper power law (E^-2.7) with respect to previous models. The resulting TeV emission has then the correct shape but is in excess of the data. This is related to the magnetic-field structure in the nebula, derived using simulations: in particular, the field is strongly compressed close to the termination shock, but with a lower than expected volume average. The jet-torus structure is also found to be visible clearly in high-resolution gamma-ray synthetic maps. We present a preliminary exploration of time variability in X- and gamma-rays. We find variations with timescales of about 2 years in both bands. The variability observed originates in the strongly time-dependent MHD motions inside the nebula.

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