Abstract
POSITIONAL coincidences and a ‘near miss’ of four small-diameter supernova remnants (SNR) with three of the 11 unidentified COS-B γ-ray sources1 are reported here. I argue that it is unlikely that all four SNR–γ-ray source associations are accidental, and that their compactness probably indicates that their ages are not greater than about 104 yr. Although these four SNR are not associated with known pulsars, the radio emission2–4 in each case is centrally peaked which admits the possibility of a central pulsar. If these associations are physical the γ rays could originate from a remnant pulsar or could be due to cosmic ray interactions in the vicinity of the remnant5. The only two previously identified6,7 and confirmed8 γ-ray sources are the Crab pulsar and the Vela pulsar ,both of which are associated with young (≲ 2×4 yr) SNR. In these two cases the γ-ray emission is predominantly pulsed and therefore comes directly from the remnant short-period pulsars.
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LAMB, R. Coincidence of compact supernova remnants with three COS-B γ-ray sources. Nature 272, 429–430 (1978). https://doi.org/10.1038/272429a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/272429a0
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