No Arabic abstract
MUSE-based emission-line maps of the spiral galaxy NGC 4030 reveal the existence of unresolved sources with forbidden line emission enhanced with respect to those seen in its own HII regions. This study reports our efforts to detect and isolate these objects and identify their nature. Candidates are first detected as unresolved sources on an image of the second principal component of the Hb, [OIII]5007, Ha, [NII]6584, [SII]6716, 6731 emission-line data cube, where they stand out clearly against both the dominant HII region population and the widespread diffuse emission. The intrinsic emission is then extracted accounting for the highly inhomogeneous emission-line background throughout the field of view. Collisional to recombination line ratios like [SII]/Ha, [NII]/Ha, and [OI]/Ha tend to increase when the background emission is corrected for. We find that many (but not all) sources detected with the principal component analysis have properties compatible with supernova remnants (SNRs). Applying a combined [SII]/Ha and [NII]/Ha classification criterion leads to a list of 59 sources with SNR-like emission lines. Many of them exhibit conspicuous spectral signatures of SNRs around 7300 Angs, and a stacking analysis shows that these features are also present, except weaker, in other cases. At nearly 30 Mpc, these are the most distant SNRs detected by optical means to date. We further report the serendipitous discovery of a luminous (M_V ~ -12.5), blue, and variable source, possibly associated with a supernova impostor.
The relatively nearby spiral galaxy NGC~6946 is one of the most actively star forming galaxies in the local Universe. Ten supernovae (SNe) have been observed since 1917, and hence NGC6946 surely contains a large number of supernova remnants (SNRs). Here we report a new optical search for these SNRs using narrow-band images obtained with the WIYN telescope. We identify 147 emission nebulae as likely SNRs, based on elevated [SII]:Halpha ratios compared to HII regions. We have obtained spectra of 102 of these nebulae with Gemini North-GMOS; of these, 89 have [SII]:Halpha ratios greater than 0.4, the canonical optical criterion for identifying SNRs. There is very little overlap between our sample and the SNR candidates identified by Lacey et al. (2001) from radio data. Also, very few of our SNR candidates are known X-ray sources, unlike the situation in some other galaxies such as M33 and M83. The emission line ratios, e.g., [NII]:Halpha, of the candidates in NGC6946 are typical of those observed in SNR samples from other galaxies with comparable metallicity. None of the candidates observed in our low-resolution spectra show evidence of anomalous abundances or significant velocity broadening. A search for emission at the sites of all the historical SNe in NGC6946 resulted in detections for only two: SN1980K and SN2004et. Spectra of both show very broad, asymmetric line profiles, consistent with the interaction between SN ejecta and the progenitor stars circumstellar material, as seen in late spectra from other core-collapse SNe of similar age.
(Abridged) Heating of the interstellar medium by multiple supernovae (SNe) explosions is at the heart of producing galaxy-scale outflows. We use hydrodynamical simulations to study the efficiency of multiple SNe in heating the interstellar medium (ISM) and filling the volume with gas of high temperatures. We argue that it is important for SNe remnants to have a large filling factor {it and} a large heating efficiency. For this, they have to be clustered in space and time, and keep exploding until the hot gas percolates through the whole region, in order to compensate for the radiative loss. In the case of a limited number of SNe, we find that although the filling factor can be large, the heating efficiency declines after reaching a large value. In the case of a continuous series of SNe, the hot gas ($T ge 3 times 10^6$ K) can percolate through the whole region after the total volume filling factor reaches a threshold of $sim 0.3$. The efficiency of heating the gas to X-ray temperatures can be $ge 0.1$ after this percolation epoch, which occurs after a period of $approx 10$ Myr for a typical starburst SNe rate density of $ u_{rm SN} approx 10^{-9}$ pc$^{-3}$ yr$^{-1}$ and gas density of $napprox 10$ cm$^{-3}$ in starburst nuclei regions. This matches the recent observations of a time delay of similar order between the onset of star formation and galactic outflows. The efficiency to heat gas up to X-ray temperatures ($ge 10^{6.5}$ K) roughly scales as $ u_{rm SN}^{0.2} n^{-0.6}$. For a typical SNe rate density and gas density in starburst nuclei, the heating efficiency is $sim 0.15$, also consistent with previous interpretations from X-ray observations. We discuss the implications of our results with regard to observational diagnostics of ionic ratios and emission measures in starburst nuclei regions.
Cosmic rays are particles (mostly protons) accelerated to relativistic speeds. Despite wide agreement that supernova remnants (SNRs) are the sources of galactic cosmic rays, unequivocal evidence for the acceleration of protons in these objects is still lacking. When accelerated protons encounter interstellar material, they produce neutral pions, which in turn decay into gamma rays. This offers a compelling way to detect the acceleration sites of protons. The identification of pion-decay gamma rays has been difficult because high-energy electrons also produce gamma rays via bremsstrahlung and inverse Compton scattering. We detected the characteristic pion-decay feature in the gamma-ray spectra of two SNRs, IC 443 and W44, with the Fermi Large Area Telescope. This detection provides direct evidence that cosmic-ray protons are accelerated in SNRs.
During an [O III] survey for planetary nebulae, we identified a region in Sagittarius containing several candidate Supernova Remnants and obtained deep optical narrow-band images and spectra to explore their nature. The images of the unstudied area have been obtained in the light of Halpha+[N II], [S II] and [O III]. The resulting mosaic covers an area of 1.4x1.0 deg^2 where filamentary and diffuse emission was discovered, suggesting the existence of more than one supernova remnants (SNRs) in the area. Deep long slit spectra were also taken of eight different regions. Both the flux calibrated images and the spectra show that the emission from the filamentary structures originates from shock-heated gas, while the photo-ionization mechanism is responsible for the diffuse emission. Part of the optical emission is found to be correlated with the radio at 4850 MHz suggesting their association, while the WISE infrared emission found in the area at 12 and 22 micron marginally correlates with the optical. The presence of the [O III] emission line in one of the candidate SNRs suggests shock velocities into the interstellar clouds between 120 and 200 km/s, while the absence in the other indicates slower shock velocities. For all candidate remnants the [S II] 6716/6731 ratio indicates electron densities below 240 cm^{-3}, while the Halpha emission has been measured to be between 0.6 to 41x10^{-17} erg/s/cm^2/arcsec^2. The existence of eight pulsars within 1.5deg away from the center of the candidate SNRs also supports the scenario of many SNRs in the area as well as that the detected optical emission could be part of a number of supernovae explosions.
We performed three-dimensional magnetohydrodynamic simulations to study the evolution of a supernova remnant (SNR) in a turbulent neutral atomic interstellar medium. The media used as background shares characteristics with the Solar neighbourhood and the SNR has mass and energy similar to those of a Type Ia object. Our initial conditions consist of dense clouds in a diluted medium, with the main difference between simulations being the average magnitude of the magnetic field. We measured amplifications of the magnetic energy of up to 34$%$ and we generated synthetic maps that illustrate how the same object can show different apparent geometries and physical properties when observed through different lines of sight.