The Effect of a Cosmic Ray Precursor in SN 1006?

Like many young supernova remnants, SN 1006 exhibits what appear to be clumps of ejecta close to or protruding beyond the main blast wave. In this Letter, we examine three such protrusions along the east rim. They are semi-aligned with ejecta fingers behind the shock-front and exhibit emission lines...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Astrophysical journal. Letters 2011-07, Vol.735 (1), p.L21-jQuery1323917049817='48'
Main Authors: Rakowski, Cara E, Laming, J. Martin, Hwang, Una, Eriksen, Kristoffer A, Ghavamian, Parviz, Hughes, John P
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
ASTROPHYSICS, COSMOLOGY AND ASTRONOMY
COSMIC RADIATION
COSMIC RADIO SOURCES
EMISSION
INSTABILITY
IONIZING RADIATIONS
PERIODICITY
PRECURSOR
RADIATIONS
RAYLEIGH-TAYLOR INSTABILITY
SHOCK WAVES
SUPERNOVA REMNANTS
VARIATIONS
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Summary:Like many young supernova remnants, SN 1006 exhibits what appear to be clumps of ejecta close to or protruding beyond the main blast wave. In this Letter, we examine three such protrusions along the east rim. They are semi-aligned with ejecta fingers behind the shock-front and exhibit emission lines from O VII and O VIII. We first interpret them in the context of an upstream medium modified by the saturated non-resonant Bell instability which enhances the growth of Rayleigh-Taylor instabilities when advected post-shock. We discuss their apparent periodicity if the spacing is determined by properties of the remnant or by a preferred size scale in the cosmic ray precursor. We also briefly discuss the alternative that these structures have an origin in the ejecta structure of the explosion itself. In this case, the young evolutionary age of SN 1006 would imply density structure within the outermost layers of the explosion with potentially important implications for deflagration and detonation in thermonuclear supernova explosion models.
ISSN:2041-8205
2041-8213
DOI:10.1088/2041-8205/735/1/L21