Probing the effects of hadronic acceleration at the SN 1006 shock front

Supernova remnant shocks are strong candidates for being the source of energetic cosmic rays and hadron acceleration is expected to increase the shock compression ratio, providing higher post-shock densities. We exploited the deep observations of the XMM-Newton Large Program on SN 1006 to verify this prediction. Spatially resolved spectral analysis led us to detect X-ray emission from the shocked ambient medium in SN 1006 and to find that its density significantly increases in regions where particle acceleration is efficient. Our results provide evidence for the effects of acceleration of cosmic ray hadrons on the post-shock plasma in supernova remnants.