An Energy-conserving, Particle-dominated, Time-dependent Model of 3C 58 and Its Observability at High Energies

We present a time-dependent spectral model of the nebula 3C 58 and compare it with available data. The model is for a leptonic nebula in which particles are subject to synchrotron, inverse Compton, self-synchrotron Compton, adiabatic, and bremsstrahlung processes. We find that 3C 58 is compatible with being a particle-dominated nebula, with a magnetic field of 35 μG. A broken power-law injection fits well the multi-frequency data, with a break energy at about 40 GeV. We find that 3C 58 is not expected to appear in VERITAS or MAGIC II, unless the local IR background is a factor of ~20 off Galactic models' averages. For cases in which the cosmic microwave background dominates the inverse Compton contribution, we find that 3C 58 will not be visible either for the Cherenkov Telescope Array.