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Register a new userCarbon, Helium and Proton Kinetic Temperatures in a Cygnus Loop Shock Wave
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Observations of SN1006 have shown that ions and electrons in the plasma behind fast supernova remnant shock waves are far from equilibrium, with the electron temperature much lower than the proton temperature and ion temperatures approximately proportional to ion mass. In the ~360 km/s shock waves of the Cygnus Loop, on the other hand, electron and ion temperatures are roughly equal, and there is evidence that the oxygen kinetic temperature is not far from the proton temperature. In this paper we report observations of the He II lambda 1640 line and the C IV lambda 1550 doublet in a 360 km/s shock in the Cygnus Loop. While the best fit kinetic temperatures are somewhat higher than the proton temperature, the temperatures of He and C are consistent with the proton temperature and the upper limits are 0.5 and 0.3 times the mass-proportional temperatures, implying efficient thermal equilibration in this collisionless shock. The equilibration of helium and hydrogen affects the conversion between proton temperatures determined from H alpha line profiles and shock speeds, and that the efficient equilibration found here reduces the shock speed estimates and the distance estimate to the Cygnus Loop of Medina et al. (2014) to about 800 pc.
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We have obtained a contiguous set of long-slit spectra of a shock wave in the Cygnus Loop to investigate its structure, which is far from the morphology predicted by 1D models. Proper motions from Hubble Space Telescope images combined with the known distance to the Cygnus Loop provide an accurate shock speed. Earlier analyses of shock spectra estimated the shock speed, postshock density, temperature, and elemental abundances. In this paper we determine several more shock parameters: a more accurate shock speed, ram pressure, density, compression ratio, dust destruction efficiency, magnetic field strength, and vorticity in the cooling region. From the derived shock properties we estimate the emissivities of synchrotron emission in the radio and pion decay emission in the gamma rays. Both are consistent with the observations if we assume simple adiabatic compression of ambient cosmic rays as in the van der Laan mechanism. We also find that, although the morphology is far from that predicted by 1D models and the line ratios vary dramatically from point to point, the average spectrum is matched reasonably well by 1D shock models with the shock speed derived from the measured proper motion. A subsequent paper will analyze the development of turbulence in the cooling zone behind the shock.
Radiative shock waves in the Cygnus Loop and other supernova remnants show different morphologies in [O III] and H{alpha} emission. We use HST spectra and narrowband images to study the development of turbulence in the cooling region behind a shock on the west limb of the Cygnus Loop. We refine our earlier estimates of shock parameters that were based upon ground-based spectra, including ram pressure, vorticity and magnetic field strength. We apply several techniques, including Fourier power spectra and the Rolling Hough Transform, to quantify the shape of the rippled shock front as viewed in different emission lines. We assess the relative importance of thermal instabilities, the thin shell instability, upstream density variations, and upstream magnetic field variations in producing the observed structure.
Upper limits on the shock speeds in supernova remnants can be combined with post-shock temperatures to obtain upper limits on the ratio of cosmic ray to gas pressure (P_CR / P_G) behind the shocks. We constrain shock speeds from proper motions and distance estimates, and we derive temperatures from X-ray spectra. The shock waves are observed as faint H-alpha filaments stretching around the Cygnus Loop supernova remnant in two epochs of the Palomar Observatory Sky Survey (POSS) separated by 39.1 years. We measured proper motions of 18 non-radiative filaments and derived shock velocity limits based on a limit to the Cygnus Loop distance of 576 +/- 61 pc given by Blair et al. for a background star. The PSPC instrument on-board ROSAT observed the X-ray emission of the post-shock gas along the perimeter of the Cygnus Loop, and we measure post-shock electron temperature from spectral fits. Proper motions range from 2.7 arcseconds to 5.4 arcseconds over the POSS epochs and post-shock temperatures range from kT ~ 100-200 eV. Our analysis suggests a cosmic ray to post-shock gas pressure consistent with zero, and in some positions P_CR is formally smaller than zero. We conclude that the distance to the Cygnus Loop is close to the upper limit given by the distance to the background star and that either the electron temperatures are lower than those measured from ROSAT PSPC X-ray spectral fits or an additional heat input for the electrons, possibly due to thermal conduction, is required.
The strong degeneracy of the 12C ignition layer on an accreting neutron star results in a hydrodynamic thermonuclear runaway, in which the nuclear heating time becomes shorter than the local dynamical time. We model the resulting combustion wave during these superbursts as an upward propagating detonation. We solve the reactive fluid flow and show that the detonation propagates through the deepest layers of fuel and drives a shock wave that steepens as it travels upward into lower density material. The shock is sufficiently strong upon reaching the freshly accreted H/He layer that it triggers unstable 4He burning if the superburst occurs during the latter half of the regular Type I bursting cycle; this is likely the origin of the bright Type I precursor bursts observed at the onset of superbursts. The cooling of the outermost shock-heated layers produces a bright, ~0.1s, flash that precedes the Type I burst by a few seconds; this may be the origin of the spike seen at the burst onset in 4U 1820-30 and 4U 1636-54, the only two bursts observed with RXTE at high time resolution. The dominant products of the 12C detonation are 28Si, 32S, and 36Ar. Gupta et al. showed that a crust composed of such intermediate mass elements has a larger heat flux than one composed of iron-peak elements and helps bring the superburst ignition depth into better agreement with values inferred from observations.
We present the first detection of carbon radio recombination line absorption along the line of sight to Cygnus A. The observations were carried out with the LOw Frequency ARray in the 33 to 57 MHz range. These low frequency radio observations provide us with a new line of sight to study the diffuse, neutral gas in our Galaxy. To our knowledge this is the first time that foreground Milky Way recombination line absorption has been observed against a bright extragalactic background source. By stacking 48 carbon $alpha$ lines in the observed frequency range we detect carbon absorption with a signal-to-noise ratio of about 5. The average carbon absorption has a peak optical depth of 2$times$10$^{-4}$, a line width of 10 km s$^{-1}$ and a velocity of +4 km s$^{-1}$ with respect to the local standard of rest. The associated gas is found to have an electron temperature $T_{e}sim$ 110 K and density $n_{e}sim$ 0.06 cm$^{-3}$. These properties imply that the observed carbon $alpha$ absorption likely arises in the cold neutral medium of the Orion arm of the Milky Way. Hydrogen and helium lines were not detected to a 3$sigma$ peak optical depth limit of 1.5$times$10$^{-4}$ for a 4 km s$^{-1}$ channel width. Radio recombination lines associated with Cygnus A itself were also searched for, but are not detected. We set a 3$sigma$ upper limit of 1.5$times$10$^{-4}$ for the peak optical depth of these lines for a 4 km s$^{-1}$ channel width.
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