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Supernova Remnants: the X-Ray Perspective

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Supernova Remnants: the X-Ray Perspective Supernova remnants: the X-ray perspective Jacco Vink Abstract Supernova remnants are beautiful astronomical objects that are also of high scientific interest, because they provide insights into supernova explosion mechanisms, and because they are the likely sources of Galactic cosmic rays. X-ray observations are an important means to study these objects. And in particular the advances made in X-ray imaging spectroscopy over the last two decades has greatly increased our knowledge about supernova remnants. It has made it possible to map the products of fresh nucleosynthesis, and resulted in the identification of regions near shock fronts that emit X-ray synchrotron radiation. Since X-ray synchrotron radiation requires 10-100 TeV electrons, which lose their energies rapidly, the study of X-ray synchrotron radiation has revealed those regions where active and rapid particle acceleration is taking place. In this text all the relevant aspects of X-ray emission from supernova remnants are reviewed and put into the context of supernova explosion properties and the physics and evolution of su- pernova remnants. The first half of this review has a more tutorial style and discusses the basics of supernova remnant physics and X-ray spectroscopy of the hot plasmas they contain. This in- cludes hydrodynamics, shock heating, thermal conduction, radiation processes, non-equilibrium ionization, He-like ion triplet lines, and cosmic ray acceleration. The second half offers a review of the advances made in field of X-ray spectroscopy of supernova remnants during the last 15 year. This period coincides with the availability of X-ray imaging spectrometers. In addition, I discuss the results of high resolution X-ray spectroscopy with the Chandra and XMM-Newton gratings. Although these instruments are not ideal for studying extended sources, they nevertheless pro- vided interesting results for a limited number of remnants. These results provide a glimpse of what may be achieved with future microcalorimeters that will be available on board future X-ray observatories. In discussing the results of the last fifteen years I have chosen to discuss a few topics that are of particular interest. These include the properties of Type Ia supernova remnants, which appear to be regularly shaped and have stratified ejecta, in contrast to core collapse supernova remnants, which have patchy ejecta distributions. For core collapse supernova remnants I discuss the spatial distribution of fresh nucleosynthesis products, but also their properties in connection to the neutron stars they contain. For the mature supernova remnants I focus on the prototypal supernova remnants Vela and the Cygnus Loop. And I discuss the interesting class of mixed-morphology remnants. Many of these mature supernova remnants contain still plasma with enhanced ejecta abundances. Over the last five years it has also become clear that many mixed-morphology remnants contain plasma that is overionized. This is in contrast to most other supernova remnants, which contain underionized plasmas. This text ends with a review of X-ray synchrotron radiation from shock regions, which has arXiv:1112.0576v2 [astro-ph.HE] 3 Jan 2012 made it clear that some form of magnetic-field amplification is operating near shocks, and is an indication of efficient cosmic-ray acceleration. 1 CONTENTS J.Vink Supernova remants Contents 1 Introduction 3 2 Supernovae 4 2.1 Corecollapsesupernovae. ................. 4 2.2 Thermonuclearsupernovae . ................. 6 3 The classification of supernova remnants 7 4 The hydrodynamic structure and evolution of supernova remnants 9 4.1 Evolutionaryphases... .... .... ... .... .... .... ... ................ 9 4.2 Analyticalmodels................................ ............... 9 4.3 Supernova remnants evolving inside wind-blown bubbles .......................... 11 5 Collisionless shock heating and particle acceleration 12 5.1 Shockheating.................................... ............. 12 5.2 Collisionlessshocks. ................. 14 5.3 Temperatureequilibration. ................... 14 5.4 Thermalconduction............................... ............... 16 5.5 Cosmic-ray acceleration by supernova remnant shocks . ......................... 17 6 X-ray radiation from supernova remnants 19 6.1 ThermalX-rayemission .... .... ... .... .... .... ... .. ............... 19 6.2 Lineemissionassociatedwithradioactivity . ........................ 23 6.3 Non-thermalemission. ................ 25 7 X-ray spectroscopy with Chandra, XMM-Newton, and Suzaku 27 8 Type Ia supernova remnants 30 8.1 X-rayspectroscopyofTypeIasupernovaremnants . ....................... 30 8.2 Evidence for Type Ia progenitor imprints on the circumstellarmedium ................... 35 9 Core collapse supernova remnants 36 9.1 Oxygen-richsupernovaremnants . ................... 36 9.2 TheX-rayemissionfromSN1987A . ................ 41 9.3 Core collapse supernovaremnantsand neutronstars . ......................... 44 10 Supernova remnants in or approaching the radiative phase 46 10.1 Fromnon-radiativetoradiativeshocks . ....................... 46 10.2 EnhancedmetalabundancesmatureSNRs . .................... 48 10.3 Mixed-morphologysupernovaremnants . ..................... 49 11 Shock heating and particle acceleration: observations 53 11.1 Electron-iontemperatureequilibration . ......................... 53 11.2 X-raysynchrotronemittingfilaments. ...................... 56 11.3 X-ray based evidence for efficient cosmic-ray acceleration ......................... 57 11.4 The relation between X-ray synchrotron and γ-rayemission......................... 60 12 Concluding remarks 62 2 INTRODUCTION J.Vink Supernova remants 1 Introduction pects of SNR shock physics. First of all the line emission provides information about the temperature and ionization Supernovae play a central role in modern astrophysics. state of the plasma, but the absence of lines or weak line They are of prime importance for the chemical evolution emission in young SNRs usually points toward the con- of the Universe, and they are one of the most important tribution of X-ray synchrotron radiation. Studying X-ray sources of energy for the interstellar medium (ISM). Part synchrotron radiation offers a powerful diagnostic tool to of that energy is in the form of cosmic rays, which have study electron cosmic-ray acceleration, as the presence 3 of X-ray synchrotron radiation depends sensitively on the an energy density in the Galaxy of 1-2 eV cm− , thus con- stituting about one third of the total energy density of the shock acceleration properties. Moreover, the size of the ISM. Finally, supernovae, in particular Type Ia supernovae X-ray synchrotron emitting regions can be used to infer (see Sect. 2), play a central role in present day cosmology magnetic-field strengths. as their brightness allows them to be detected at high red- One of the major advances in X-ray spectroscopy over shifts (up to z 1.7, Riess et al., 2007). Their use has led the last 15-20years has beenthe emergenceof X-ray imag- to the recognition∼ that the expansion of the Universe is ac- ing spectroscopy. Although presently the spectral resolu- celerating instead of decelerating (Perlmutter et al., 1998; tion offered is limited, it provides a direct way to map the Garnavich et al., 1998). spatial distribution of elements and temperatures in SNRs. Supernova remnants (SNRs) are an important means For young SNRs it also helps to separate thermal from to study supernovae. Since supernovae are relatively rare non-thermal (synchrotron) X-ray emission. (2-3 per century in a typical spiral galaxy like our own), The power of X-ray imaging spectroscopy is illustrated SNRs provide the best way to study the local population in Fig. 1, which shows Tycho’s SNR (the remnant of the of supernovae. In addition, SNRs can reveal details about historical SN 1572) as observed by Chandra. The im- the explosions that are difficult to obtain from studying su- age shows beautifully the distribution of silicon and iron, pernovae directly. For example, young SNRs can inform but also reveals the synchrotron dominated emission from us about nucleosynthesis yields of individual SNRs and near the shock front. about the inherent asymmetries of the explosion itself, as Over the last ten years high spectral resolution X-ray revealed by the spatial and velocity distribution of heavy spectroscopy has gained in importance, due to the avail- elements. Moreover, SNRs probe the immediate surround- ability of grating spectrometers on board Chandra and ings of supernovae, which are shaped by their progenitors. XMM-Newton. These spectrometers are also used to study Another aspect of SNRs concerns the interesting physi- cal process that shape their properties. SNR shocks pro- vide the best Galactic examples of high Mach number, collisionless shocks. The physics of these shocks is not well understood, as heating of the atoms occurs collision- less, i.e. shock heating does not operate through particle- particle (Coulomb) interactions, but through electro- magnetic fluctuations and plasma waves. The SNR shocks are also thought to be the locations where part of the ex- plosion energy is converted to cosmic-ray energy. This is supported by observations that indicate that GeV and TeV particles are present in SNRs through their radiative sig- natures: radio to X-ray synchrotron emission from rela- tivistic electrons, and γ-ray emission caused by acceler- ated electrons and ions. X-ray observations are one of the most important means to study the many aspects of SNRs.
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