Amanda

The gamma-ray emission arising from charged particle interactions with ambient photons and interstellar material provides an essential probe of the nature and mechanism of charged particle (cosmic ray) acceleration taking place within supernova remnants (SNRs). The VERITAS observatory (sensitive to gamma rays with E > 85 GeV) has undertaken observations of a number of different supernova remnants. These studies have the twin goals of constraining particle acceleration models via measurements of the broadband energy spectrum and of mapping particle diffusion within SNRs. Of particular interest are SNRs that are expected to contain a more energetic particle population, either due to their youth or the fact that they evince an unusually hard spectrum. We discuss VERITAS observations of several young and/or hard-spectrum supernova remnants, including updated results from deep VERITAS observations of two young, gamma-ray bright SNRs, Tycho’s SNR and Cassiopeia A (Cas A).