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XMM-Newton Observation of the Northeastern Limb of the Cygnus Loop Supernova Remnant

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XMM-Newton Observation of the Northeastern Limb of the Cygnus Loop Supernova Remnant XMM-Newton Observation of the Northeastern Limb of the Cygnus Loop Supernova Remnant Norbert Nemes Graduate School of Science, Osaka University, 1-1 Machikaneyama-cho, Toyonaka, Osaka 560-0043, Japan 04 February 2005 Osaka University Abstract We have observed the northeastern limb of the Cygnus Loop supernova remnant with the XMM-Newton observatory, as part of a 7-pointing campaign to map the remnant across its diameter. We performed medium sensitivity spatially resolved X-ray spectroscopy on the data in the 0.3-3.0 keV energy range, and for the first time we have detected C emission lines in our spectra. The background subtracted spectra were fitted with a single temperature absorbed non-equilibrium (VNEI) model. We created color maps and plotted the radial variation of the different parameters. We found that the heavy element abundances were depleted, but increase toward the edge of the remnant, exhibiting a jump structure near the northeastern edge of the field of view. The depletion suggests that the plasma in this region represents the shock heated ISM rather than the ejecta, while the radial increase of the elemental abundances seems to support the cavity explosion origin. The temperature decreases in the radial direction from 0:3keV to about 0:2keV , however, this ∼ ∼ decrease is not monotonic. There is a low temperature region in the part of the field of view closest to the center of the remnant, which is characterized by low abundances and high NH values. Another low temperature region characterized by low NH values but where the heavy element abundances suddenly jump to high values was found at the northeastern edge of the field of view. We theorize that these two regions could be interstellar clouds interacting with the blast wave. Contents 1 Supernovae and Supernova Remnants 1 1.1 Supernovae (SNe) . 1 1.1.1 Classification of Supernovae . 2 1.2 Supernova Remnants (SNRs) . 5 1.2.1 Classification of SNRs . 5 1.2.2 Shock Waves . 6 1.2.3 Evolution of SNRs . 7 1.2.4 The Interaction with Interstellar Clouds . 11 1.2.5 X-ray Emission from SNRs . 14 2 The Cygnus Loop 21 2.1 Radio Observations . 21 2.2 Optical Observations . 22 2.2.1 Depletion of Heavy Elements . 24 2.3 X-ray Observations . 24 3 XMM-Newton 28 3.1 The X-ray Telescopes . 28 3.1.1 X-ray Point-Spread Function . 30 3.1.2 X-ray Effective Area . 30 3.1.3 European Photon Imaging Camera (EPIC) . 30 3.1.4 Readout Modes . 33 3.1.5 EPIC Filters . 33 3.1.6 The EPIC Background . 36 4 Observation and Data Preparation 39 4.1 Observation . 39 4.2 Data Preparation . 39 i CONTENTS ii 5 Analysis 42 5.1 Image analysis . 42 5.2 Spectral analysis . 42 6 Results 50 6.1 Color maps and the radial variation of things . 50 6.1.1 Analysis II . 56 7 Discussion 61 8 Conclusions 67 List of Figures 1.1 The Sedov self-similar solution. Each value is normalized by each value just behind the shock wave. 10 1.2 The iron Kα emissivity (solid lines) and the emissivity-averaged line energy (dashed lines) as 3 −1 2 a function of Te and Tz. The unit of the emissivity are photons cm s /ne and the step is 0.2 in the log scale (Masai 1994)[29]. 18 1.3 Fe ion fractions . 20 1.4 Emissivity of each Fe ion . 20 1.5 The center energy of Fe-K line blends . 20 2.1 1420 MHz radio map of the Cygnus Loop (Leahy 1995) . 22 2.2 ROSAT X-ray map of the Cygnus Loop (ROSAT All Sky Survey) . 27 3.1 Sketch of the XMM-Newton payload. The mirror modules, two of which are equipped with Reflection Grating Arrays, are visible at the lower left. At the right end of the assembly, the focal X-ray instruments are shown: The EPIC MOS cameras with their radiators (black/green 'horns'), the radiator of the EPIC pn camera (violet) and those of the (light blue) RGS detectors (pink). The OM telescope is obscured by the lower mirror module. Figure courtesy of Dornier Satellitensysteme GmbH. 29 3.2 The light path in XMM-Newton's open X-ray telescope with the pn camera in focus (not to scale) . 30 3.3 The net effective area of all XMM-Newton X-ray telescopes . 31 3.4 The general layout of the MOS camera . 32 3.5 The general layout of the pn camera . 32 3.6 Operating modes of the MOS camera: full frame mode (top left), large window mode (top right), small window mode (bottom left) and timing mode (bottom right) . 34 3.7 Operating modes of the pn camera: full frame and extended full frame mode (top left), large window mode (top right), small window mode (bottom left) and timing mode (bottom right) 35 3.8 Combined effective area of all telescopes assuming that all cameras operate with the same filters 35 3.9 The lightcurve from a MOS1 observation badly affected by soft proton flares . 36 3.10 Background spectrum of the MOS1 camera. The prominent features around 1.5 and 1.7 keV are Al-K and Si-K fluorescence lines . 37 iii LIST OF FIGURES iv 3.11 Background spectrum of the pn camera. The prominent features around 1.5 are Al-K, at 5.5 keV Cr-K, at 8 keV Ni-K, Cu-K, Zn-K and at 17.5 keV Mo-K fluorescence lines. The rise of the spectrum below 0.3 keV are due to the detector noise. 37 3.12 Background image for the MOS camera in the Si-Kα energy range . 38 3.13 Background images for the pn camera with spatially inhomogeneous fluorescent lines: Ti+V+Cr- Kα (top-left), Nickel (7.3-7.6 keV) (top-right), Copper (7.8-8.2 keV)(bottom-left) and Molyb- denum (17.1-17.7 keV)(bottom-left) . 38 4.1 Lightcurves extracted from the event files before and after the GTI filtering. 40 5.1 Three-color image of the northeastern limb of the Cygnus Loop. The colors correspond to the following energy ranges: red - (0.3-0.75) keV, green - (0.75-12) keV, blue - (1.2-3.0) keV. The image has been smoothed with a 3σ gausian. North is up and west is to the right . 43 5.2 Source (black) and background (red) spectra of the MOS1 camera . 46 5.3 Source (black) and background (red) spectra of the MOS2 camera . 46 5.4 Source (black) and background (red) spectra of the pn camera . 46 5.5 Combined background subtracted spectrum of the entire FOV. 47 5.6 The regions selected for analysis superimposed on the X-ray surface brightness map. 47 5.7 The result of fitting the vmekal model (left) and the VNEI model (right) . 48 5.8 The spectra best fit (left) and worst fit (right) by our model . 49 6.1 The binning annuli overlayed onto the spectral selection regions. 51 6.2 The variation of kTe . 52 6.3 The radial variation of kTe . 52 6.4 The variation of C . 52 6.5 The radial variation of C . 52 6.6 The variation of O . 53 6.7 The radial variation of O . 53 6.8 The variation of Ne . 53 6.9 The radial variation of Ne . 53 6.10 The variation of Mg . 54 6.11 The radial variation of Mg . 54 6.12 The variation of Fe . 54 6.13 The radial variation of Fe . 54 6.14 The variation of log(net) . 55 6.15 The radial variation of log(net) . 55 6.16 The variation of NH . 56 6.17 The radial variation of NH . 56 6.18 The radial variation of the EI . 57 6.19 The spectral extraction regions used for the second analysis . 57 LIST OF FIGURES v 6.20 The kTe for each region . 58 6.21 The log(net) for each region . 58 6.22 The abundance of C in each region . 58 6.23 The abundance of O in each region . 58 6.24 The abundance of Ne in each region . 59 6.25 The abundance of Mg in each region . 59 6.26 The abundance of Si in each region . ..
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