NESTED SHELLS REVEAL the REJUVENATION of the ORION-ERIDANUS SUPERBUBBLE Bram B
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Draft version July 19, 2018 Preprint typeset using LATEX style emulateapj v. 5/2/11 NESTED SHELLS REVEAL THE REJUVENATION OF THE ORION-ERIDANUS SUPERBUBBLE Bram B. Ochsendorf1,Anthony G. A. Brown1,John Bally2 &Alexander G. G. M. Tielens1 1 Leiden Observatory, Leiden University, P.O. Box 9513, NL-2300 RA, The Netherlands 2 CASA, University of Colorado, CB 389, Boulder, CO 80309, USA Draft version July 19, 2018 ABSTRACT The Orion-Eridanus superbubble is the prototypical superbubble due to its proximity and evolutionary state. Here, we provide a synthesis of recent observational data from WISE and Planck with archival data, allow- ing to draw a new and more complete picture on the history and evolution of the Orion-Eridanus region. We discuss the general morphological structures and observational characteristics of the superbubble, and derive quantitative properties of the gas- and dust inside Barnard’s Loop. We reveal that Barnard’s Loop is a complete bubble structure which, together with the λ Ori region and other smaller-scale bubbles, expands within the Orion-Eridanus superbubble. We argue that the Orion-Eridanus superbubble is larger and more complex than previously thought, and that it can be viewed as a series of nested shells, superimposed along the line of sight. During the lifetime of the superbubble, H II region champagne flows and thermal evaporation of embedded clouds continuously mass-load the superbubble interior, while winds or supernovae from the Orion OB associ- ation rejuvenate the superbubble by sweeping up the material from the interior cavities in an episodic fashion, possibly triggering the formation of new stars that form shells of their own. The steady supply of material into the superbubble cavity implies that dust processing from interior supernova remnants is more efficient than pre- viously thought. The cycle of mass-loading, interior cleansing, and star formation repeats until the molecular reservoir is depleted or the clouds have been disrupted. While the nested shells come and go, the superbubble remains for tens of millions of years. 1. INTRODUCTION ble structure, separate from the Orion-Eridanus superbubble, The Orion-Eridanus superbubble is a nearby (∼400 pc) ex- that sweeps up the mass-loaded interior of the pre-existing panding structure that is thought to span 20◦ × 45◦ on the sky superbubble. It is argued that the Orion-Eridanus superbub- (Reynolds & Ogden 1979; Bally 2008; Pon et al. 2014a). Be- ble is larger and more complex than previously thought, and cause of its proximity and evolutionary stage, it is traced at that the entire morphological appearance of the superbubble a multitude of wavelengths (Heiles et al. 1999), serving as a can be viewed as a series of nested shells, superimposed along benchmark to the study of superbubbles. The expansion of the line of sight. The shells originate from explosive feedback the bubble is most likely connected to the combined effects of from Orion OB1 that accelerate, sweep-up, and compress the ionizing UV radiation, stellar winds, and a sequence of super- superbubble interior plasmas in an episodic fashion to form nova explosions from the Orion OB association, Orion OB1 nested shells within the Orion-Eridanus superbubble. We ex- (Blaauw 1964; Brown et al. 1994). plore the origin of the shells, their relation with the subgroups The line of sight expansion of the Orion-Eridanus super- of Orion OB1, and their impact on the molecular clouds and bubble is previously estimated at ∼ 15 km s−1 through line- star formation efficiency within Orion. We discuss our find- splitting of Hα, which also revealed a total ionized gas mass ings in terms of the long-term evolution of the superbubble. We present the obervations in Sec. 2 and our results in Sec. 3. of 8 × 104 M and a kinetic energy of E > 1.9 × 1050 erg kin In Sec. 4, we discuss our findings, and summarize in Sec. 5. (Reynolds & Ogden 1979). Large-scale spectroscopic map- ping of the entire Orion-Eridanus region in H I reported a 2. OBSERVATIONS larger expansion velocity of the superbubble of ∼ 40 km s−1 with a mass of 2.5 × 105 M , containing a kinetic energy We made use of the all-sky surveys from Planck (Planck Collaboration et al. 2014c), the Wide-Field Infrared Explorer of 3.7 × 1051 erg (Brown et al. 1995), which is shown to be arXiv:1506.02426v1 [astro-ph.GA] 8 Jun 2015 (WISE; Wright et al. 2010), the Leiden/Argentina/Bonn consistent with the integrated mechanical luminosity exerted survey of Galactic H I (LAB; Kalberla et al. 2005), the ∼ 52 by Orion OB1 ( 10 erg; Brown et al. 1995). The expan- R¨ontgensatellit soft X-ray background (ROSAT SXRB; sion of the superbubble is also traced through high-velocity Snowden et al. 1997), and an all-sky Hα map that combines and intermediate-velocity gas in several lines of sight towards several large-scale surveys (Finkbeiner 2003), including the Orion (Cowie et al. 1979; Welty et al. 2002). Soft X-rays Southern H-alpha Sky Survey Atlas (SHASSA; Gaustad et al. emanate from the million-degree plasma in the interior of the 2001), the Virginia-Tech Spectral-line Survey (VTSS; Den- superbubble (Burrows et al. 1993; Snowden et al. 1995). nison et al. 1998), and the Wisconsin Hα Mapper (WHAM; Here, we present observations of recent all-sky surveys with Haffner et al. 2003). WISE and Planck, and combine them with existing sky sur- veys to provide a new and more complete insight in the his- 3. RESULTS tory and evolution of the Orion-Eridanus region. In particular, we will reveal that Barnard’s Loop is part of a complete bub- Figure 1 reveals the large-scale structure of the Orion- Eridanus superbubble. In Hα, the region exhibits various fila- mentary structures, including Barnard’s loop (Barnard 1894) [email protected] and the Eridanus filaments (e.g., Pon et al. 2014b). Projected 2 a E E a N b N BL Top BL Top b 1 1 5 5 c BL Bot 8 BL Bot 8 7 7 2 2 6 6 3 d 3 4 4 S.A. -1 -1 Towards Galactic plane -40 km s < vLSR < 40 km s E OMC B E N N c Barnard’s loop d λ Ori BL Top OMC A 1 GS206-17+13 IC 434 5 ONC High latitude BL Bot 8 MBM20 clouds 7 2 Eri A MBM18 6 3 Eri C 4 Eri B IR l. Fig. 1.— (a) Three-color image of the Orion-Eridanus superbubble. Hα (blue) reveals ionized gas, surrounded by a layer of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons or stochastically-heated small grains, traced by the WISE 12 µm band (green). Red is Planck 353 GHz that probes columns of cold (20 K) dust. The polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons/small grains trace the UV-illuminated edges of the clouds containing cold dust, resulting in that red and green blend to form yellow. To the north-east (top part the image) lies the Galactic plane, while to the north-west (right part of the image) lie high-latitude clouds (e.g., Schlafly et al. 2014). The numbered boxes define the apertures discussed in Sec. 3.2, while the light-green labelled solid lines mark the positions of cross-cuts used in Fig. 2. (b) Same region as panel (a), but only showing the Hα emission using a different stretch to accentuate the faint shell structure which envelops the Orion region in Hα. The white dot reveals the flux-weighted centre of the Hα bubble (Reynolds & Ogden 1979). (c) HI emission from the LAB survey, integrated in velocity −1 −1 space along the full extent of the Orion-Eridanus superbubble, -40 km s < vLSR < 40 km s (Brown et al. 1995). Overlayed are contours of ROSAT 0.25 keV (orange dashed) and ROSAT 0.75 keV diffuse X-rays (light blue dashed). The 0.75 keV emission projected within Barnard’s Loop originates from bright sources within the ONC and IC 434 regions, but is blended with the more diffuse emission from the superbubble because of smoothing of the ROSAT maps. Below the white solid line the image has a different scaling to accentuate the faint HI filament intersecting apertures 2-4. Also overplotted is the shape of the superbubble aperture (S.A.; see text) (d) Schematic representation of the region. Hα gas structures are shown in blue lines/contours, while dust structures are plotted in red. The solid lines trace faint filaments of the region to guide the eye in panels (a) & (b). The stars that form the well-known constellation of Orion are also plotted to appreciate the immense size of the region (black diamonds). Members of the different subgroups of the Orion OB association (Blaauw 1964; Brown et al. 1994) with spectral type B2 or earlier are also shown in different grey symbols shown by the legend. See text for the explanation of the different abbreviations. 3 on top of Barnard’s Loop are the Orion A and Orion B molec- part of Barnard’s Loop. Then, the observed optical depths −6 −6 ular clouds (OMC A and OMC B), the Orion Nebular cluster are τ353;obs = 9.0 × 10 (for BLtop) and τ353;obs = 5.1 × 10 (ONC) associated with the Orion nebula, and the IC 434 emis- (BLbot). We can compare this to the expected optical depth, −3 sion nebula that is characterized by a champagne flow of ion- τ353;cal, from the density (3.4 cm ), estimated line of sight ized gas (Tenorio-Tagle 1979; Sec. 3.3.4). Another prominent depth (45 pc for a 1◦ thickness) and the opacity at 353 GHz ◦ −27 2 −1 feature is the λ Orionis bubble, a 10 circular H II region, en- (σν = 7.9 × 10 cm H ) appropriate for the diffuse ISM capsulated by a swept-up shell of gas and dust.