AZIMUTHAL DENSITY VARIATIONS AROUND THE RIM OF TYCHO's SUPERNOVA REMNANT
- NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771 (United States)
- Department of Physics, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27695 (United States)
- Department of Physics, Astronomy, and Geosciences, Towson University, Towson, MD 21252 (United States)
Spitzer images of Tycho's supernova remnant in the mid-infrared reveal limb-brightened emission from the entire periphery of the shell and faint filamentary structures in the interior. As with other young remnants, this emission is produced by dust grains, warmed to {approx}100 K in the post-shock environment by collisions with energetic electrons and ions. The ratio of the 70 to 24 {mu}m fluxes is a diagnostic of the dust temperature, which in turn is a sensitive function of the plasma density. We find significant variations in the 70/24 flux ratio around the periphery of Tycho's forward shock, implying order-of-magnitude variations in density. While some of these are likely localized interactions with dense clumps of the interstellar medium (ISM), we find an overall gradient in the ambient density surrounding Tycho, with densities 3-10 times higher in the northeast than in the southwest. This large density gradient is qualitatively consistent with the variations in the proper motion of the shock observed in radio and X-ray studies. Overall, the mean ISM density around Tycho is quite low ({approx}0.1-0.2 cm{sup -3}), consistent with the lack of thermal X-ray emission observed at the forward shock. We perform two-dimensional hydrodynamic simulations of a Type Ia supernova expanding into a density gradient in the ISM, and find that the overall round shape of the remnant is still easily achievable, even for explosions into significant gradients. However, this leads to an offset of the center of the explosion from the geometric center of the remnant of up to 20%, although lower values of 10% are preferred. The best match with hydrodynamical simulations is achieved if Tycho is located at a large (3-4 kpc) distance in a medium with a mean preshock density of {approx}0.2 cm{sup -3}. Such preshock densities are obtained for highly ({approx}> 50%) porous ISM grains.
- OSTI ID:
- 22127069
- Journal Information:
- Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 770, Issue 2; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0004-637X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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