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Register a new userThe First Reported Infrared Emission from the SN 1006 Remnant
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We report results of infrared imaging and spectroscopic observations of the SN 1006 remnant, carried out with the Spitzer Space Telescope. The 24 micron image from MIPS clearly shows faint filamentary emission along the northwest rim of the remnant shell, nearly coincident with the Balmer filaments that delineate the present position of the expanding shock. The 24 micron emission traces the Balmer filaments almost perfectly, but lies a few arcsec within, indicating an origin in interstellar dust heated by the shock. Subsequent decline in the IR behind the shock is presumably due largely to grain destruction through sputtering. The emission drops far more rapidly than current models predict, however, even for a higher proportion of small grains than would be found closer to the Galactic plane. The rapid drop may result in part from a grain density that has always been lower -- a relic effect from an earlier epoch when the shock was encountering a lower density -- but higher grain destruction rates still seem to be required. Spectra from three positions along the NW filament from the IRS instrument all show only a featureless continuum, consistent with thermal emission from warm dust. The dust-to-gas mass ratio in the pre-shock interstellar medium is lower than that expected for the Galactic ISM -- as has also been observed in the analysis of IR emission from other SNRs but whose cause remains unclear. As with other SN Ia remnants, SN 1006 shows no evidence for dust grain formation in the supernova ejecta.
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Recent theoretical predictions of the lowest very high energy (VHE) luminosity of SN 1006 are only a factor 5 below the previously published H.E.S.S. upper limit, thus motivating further in-depth observations of this source. Deep observations at VHE energies (above 100 GeV) were carried out with the High Energy Stereoscopic System (H.E.S.S.) of Cherenkov Telescopes from 2003 to 2008. More than 100 hours of data have been collected and subjected to an improved analysis procedure. Observations resulted in the detection of VHE gamma-rays from SN 1006. The measured gamma-ray spectrum is compatible with a power-law, the flux is of the order of 1% of that detected from the Crab Nebula, and is thus consistent with the previously established H.E.S.S. upper limit. The source exhibits a bipolar morphology, which is strongly correlated with non-thermal X-rays. Because the thickness of the VHE-shell is compatible with emission from a thin rim, particle acceleration in shock waves is likely to be the origin of the gamma-ray signal. The measured flux level can be accounted for by inverse Compton emission, but a mixed scenario that includes leptonic and hadronic components and takes into account the ambient matter density inferred from observations also leads to a satisfactory description of the multi-wavelength spectrum.
We use three dimensional magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulations to model the supernova remnant SN 1006. From our numerical results, we have carried out a polarization study, obtaining synthetic maps of the polarized intensity, the Stokes parameter $Q$, and the polar-referenced angle, which can be compared with observational results. Synthetic maps were computed considering two possible particle acceleration mechanisms: quasi-parallel and quasi-perpendicular. The comparison of synthetic maps of the Stokes parameter $Q$ maps with observations proves to be a valuable tool to discern unambiguously which mechanism is taking place in the remnant of SN 1006, giving strong support to the quasi-parallel model.
Hadronic gamma-ray emission from supernova remnants (SNRs) is an important tool to test shock acceleration of cosmic ray protons. Tycho is one of nearly a dozen Galactic SNRs which are suggested to emit hadronic gamma-ray emission. Among them, however, it is the only one in which the hadronic emission is proposed to arise from the interaction with low-density (~0.3 cm^{-3}) ambient medium. Here we present an alternative hadronic explanation with a modest conversion efficiency (of order 1%) for this young remnant. With such an efficiency, a normal electron-proton ratio (of order 10^{-2}) is derived from the radio and X-ray synchrotron spectra and an average ambient density that is at least one-order-of-magnitude higher is derived from the hadronic gamma-ray flux. This result is consistent with the multi-band evidence of the presence of dense medium from the north to the east of the Tycho SNR. The SNR-cloud association, in combination with the HI absorption data, helps to constrain the so-far controversial distance to Tycho and leads to an estimate of 2.5 kpc.
We present the deepest optical spectrum acquired to date of Balmer-dominated shocks in the NW rim of SN 1006. We detect the broad and narrow components of H-alpha, H-beta and H-gamma and report the first detection of the He I 6678 emission line in this supernova remnant. We may have detected, at the 1.5-sigma level, faint He II 4686 emission. We measure a full width half maximum of 2290 +/- 80 km/s in the broad component H-alpha line, with broad-to-narrow flux ratios of 0.84^+(0.03)_(-0.01) and 0.93^(+0.18)_(-0.16) in H-alpha and H-beta, respectively. To match these observations, our nonradiative shock models require a low degree of electron-proton equilibration at the shock front, T_e/T_p <= 0.07, and a shock speed of 2890 +/- 100 km/s. These results agree well with an earlier analysis of ultraviolet lines from SN 1006. The He I/H-alpha and He I/He II flux ratios also indicate low equilibration. Furthermore, our models match the observations for mostly ionized (~ 90%) preshock H and mostly neutral (>~ 70%) preshock He, respectively. We conclude that the high H ionization fraction cannot be explained by either photoionization from the reverse shock or relic ionization from EUV photons released in the 1006 A.D. supernova. The most plausible explanation appears to be photoionization from the Galactic Lyman continuum.
We investigate time variations and detailed spatial structures of X-ray synchrotron emission in the northeastern limb of SN 1006, using two Chandra observations taken in 2000 and 2008. We extract spectra from a number of small (about 10) regions. After taking account of proper motion and isolating the synchrotron from the thermal emission, we study time variations in the synchrotron emission in the small regions. We find that there are no regions showing strong flux variations. Our analysis shows an apparent flux decline in the overall synchrotron flux of about 4% at high energies, but we suspect that this is mostly a calibration effect, and that flux is actually constant to about 1%. This is much less than the variation found in other remnants where it was used to infer magnetic-field strengths up to 1 mG. We attribute the lack of variability to the smoothness of the synchrotron morphology, in contrast to the small-scale knots found to be variable in other remnants. The smoothness is to be expected for a Type Ia remnant encountering uniform material. Finally we find a spatial correlation between the flux and the cut-off frequency in synchrotron emission. The simplest interpretation is that the cut-off frequency depends on the magnetic-field strength. This would require that the maximum energy of accelerated electrons is not limited by synchrotron losses, but by some other effect. Alternatively, the rate of particle injection and acceleration may vary due to some effect not yet accounted for, such as a dependence on shock obliquity.
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