A&A 424, 583-588 (2004)
DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361:20040410
P. Boumis1 - J. Meaburn2 - J. A. López3 - F. Mavromatakis4 - M. P. Redman5 - D. J. Harman2 - C. D. Goudis1,6
1 - Institute of Astronomy & Astrophysics, National Observatory of
Athens, I. Metaxa & V. Paulou, P. Penteli, 15236 Athens, Greece
2 - Jodrell Bank Observatory, University of Manchester, Macclesfield
SK11 9DL, UK
3 - Instituto de Astronomia, UNAM, Apdo. Postal 877. Ensenada, BC 22800,
México
4 - University of Crete, Physics Department, PO Box 2208, 710 03
Heraklion, Crete, Greece
5 - Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, School of Cosmic Physics,
5 Merrion Square, Dublin 2, Republic of Ireland
6 - Astronomical Laboratory, Department of Physics, University
of Patras, 26500 Rio-Patras, Greece
Received 9 March 2004 / Accepted 11 May 2004
Abstract
Further deep, narrow-band images in the light of [O III] 5007 Å have been added to the previous mosaic of the faint galactic supernova
remnant G 65.3+5.7. Additionally, long-slit spatially resolved
[O III] 5007 Å line profiles have been obtained at sample positions using the
Manchester Echelle Spectrometer at the San Pedro Martir observatory.
The remnant is shown to be predominantly bi-lobal with an EW
axis. However, a faint additional northern lobe has now been revealed.
The splitting of the profiles along the slit lengths, when extrapolated to the centre of the remnant, although uncertain, suggests that the expansion velocity of this remnant is between 124 and 187 km s-1 i.e. much lower than the 400 km s-1 previously predicted for the forward shock velocity from the X-ray emission.
An expansion proper motion measurement of
arcsec in 48 years for the remnant's filamentary edge in the light of H
+ [N II] 6548 and 6584 Å has also been made. This is combined with an expansion velocity of
155 km s-1, a distance of
800 pc is
derived.
Several possibilities are considered for the large difference in the expansion velocity measured here and the 400 km s-1 shock velocity required to generate the X-ray emission. It is also suggested that the morphology of the remnant may be created by a tilt in the galactic magnetic field in this vicinity.
Key words: ISM: general - ISM: supernova remnants - ISM: individual objects: G 65.3+5.7
Also presented in Paper I are low-dispersion spectra at eight
positions (P1-8) around the remnant's perimeter; these are consistent
with ionization by a 90-140 km s-1 shock with a local ionized gas
density of 200 cm-3 typical of an 20 000 yr old SNR. ROSAT observations by Aschenbach (1994) and
Lu &
Aschenbach (2004) reveal clumpy X-ray emission from G 65.3+5.7,
assuming a distance of 1 kpc, from a forward shock of
400 km s-1 in a tenuous ambient medium of density 0.02 cm-3.
From H
interferograms obtained with a classical Fabry-Perot
interferometer, Losinskaya (1980) had extrapolated line splitting over
the bright filamentary edge of G 65.3+5.7 (called
"A newly discovered SNR in Cygnus'' in that paper) to give a global expansion
velocity
=
km s-1.
Deep, spatially resolved profiles of the [O III] 5007 Å emission line have now been obtained with an echelle spectrometer at positions P1-5 and 7-8 where the Paper I low-dispersion spectra were obtained, and at a further position, P9, over the centre of G 65.3+5.7 with the intention of measuring the maximum expansion velocity directly as well as obtaining accurate line profiles at representive positions. Further deep CCD images, again in the [O III] 5007 Å line and neighbouring continuum, were also obtained, with the same wide-field imaging system employed in Paper I; a more complete continuum-subtracted image of this SNR has resulted.
Three further [O III] and continuum images were obtained on June
2003, 27-28, with the 89
89
field (5
per pixel) 0.3 m Schmidt Cassegrain telescope at the Skinakas Observatory,
Crete, Greece to complete the coverage of the westerly edge of the SNR. These were then combined, after an identical analysis, with the
[O III] 5007 Å image described in Paper I. Light and deep negative grey-scale
representations of the whole field are shown in Figs. 1a and b,
respectively.
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Figure 1: A negative, continuum-subtracted mosaic of [O III] 5007 Å images of G 65.3+5.7 is presented lightly in a) with the slit positions P1-5 and 7-9 marked and where the prominent eastern and western lobes are apparent; and deeply in b) to reveal the fainter structure with a further northern lobe suggested (coordinates are epoch 2000). |
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Figure 2: Negative greyscale presentations of the [O III] 5007 Å position-velocity arrays for EW slit positions (see Fig. 1a) P1-5 and 7-8. |
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Figure 3:
a) A small section of the image in Fig. 1 with the
full length of slit P1 marked. b) The contour map, with
linear intervals, of a 43
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Figure 4:
As for Figs. 3a, b but for a 102
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Figure 5:
[O III] 5007 Å line profiles for the brightest filamentary regions
intersected by the pv arrays in Fig. 2, and for the diffuse emission
along slit P9. The profiles are for the various lengths
(between the brackets) along the slits: for slit P1 (7
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The present spectral observations were made with the Manchester
Echelle Spectrometer (MES-SPM - see Meaburn et al. 1984, 2003)
combined with the 2.1-m San Pedro Martir telescope. The detector was
a SITe3 CCD with
,
24
m pixels although
binning was employed throughout the observations on the
nights of May 2003, 29-31.
Spatially resolved, long-slit line profiles at high spectral resolution were obtained with the MES-SPM. This spectrometer has no cross-dispersion. For the present observations, a filter of 60 Å bandwidth was used to isolate the 114th echelle order containing the [O III] 5007 Å nebular emission line.
The 512 increments, each 0.626
long, give a total projected
slit length of 5
34 on the sky. "Seeing'' was always
1
during these observations. A 150
m wide (
12
and 1.9
)
single slit was used.
The data were bias-corrected, cleaned etc. in the usual way using the
STARLINK FIGARO and KAPPA software packages. All
spectra were calibrated in heliocentric radial velocity (
)
to
3
accuracy against spectra of a thorium/argon
lamp. Absolute surface brightnesses,
erg s-1 cm-2 sr-1 Å-1, of the line profiles were obtained by
comparing the spectra to the slitless spectrum of the standard star
Feige 56. All spectra were obtained in photometric conditions, and
without correction for interstellar extinction are accurate to around
10 percent.
The slit was orientated EW on the centres P1-5 and P7-8 from Paper I with integration times of 1800 s. The integration time for a further slit position (P9) was 3600 s. These slit positions are shown against the lightly printed image of the SNR in Fig. 1a.
Negative grey-scale representations of the position-velocity (pv) arrays of the [O III] 5007 Å line profiles are shown in Figs. 2a-h for slit positions P1-5 and P7-8. More details of the imagery and pv arrays over the brighter filaments are shown in Figs. 3a, b and 4a, b for slits P1 and P2 respectively.
The line profiles extracted from various lengths of the pv arrays in
Figs. 2a-h and for P9, where the emission is very faint, are shown in
Fig. 5. The observed peak value of
in units of
10-6 erg s-1 cm-2 sr-1 Å-1 is given next to
each profile.
The filament at Pos. 2 (Fig. 1a) was detected on the Palomar
Observatory Sky Survey POSS-E red plate taken in 1951. This is 48 yr
before the H
+ [N II] 6548 and 6584 Å image was obtained (taken on 1999 July 13
similarly to those in Figs. 1a and b - see Paper I for details). Both
images are predominantly in the light of the H
+ [N II] 6548 and 6584 Å lines, and
the Digitized Sky Survey of the POSS plate has a very similar angular
resolution to the 1999 imagery. A measurement of the expansion proper
motion of G 65.3+5.7 has therefore been made.
Firstly, the two time-separated images were rotated identically until
the filament covered by Pos. 2 became vertical in both
arrays. Profiles were then extracted along identical lines where there
were no confusing stellar images on the filament but many reference
star profiles further away. Gaussians were fitted to both faint
stellar and filament profiles to give a measured shift perpendicular
to the filament's length, and away from the centre of the supernova
remnant, of
arcsec in 48 years.
The first useful parameter to determine for such an extended SNR is
its systemic heliocentric radial velocity (
). This is given most
plausibly by the mean
of the profiles of the brightest
filaments on the perimeter of the remnant, as it is assumed that these
are being viewed tangentially. The centroids of the single profiles in
Figs. 3-5 for the filamentary edges along slits P1, 2, 3, 5 and 7 are at
= -19, 0, 0, -10 and -15 km s-1 respectively to give
a value of
= -7 km s-1 for G 65.3+5.7 (i.e. halfway between the
mean radial velocities of the northern and southern filaments). Note
that the profiles for the northern filaments (P1, P7 and P5) are
significantly displaced to approaching radial velocities compared with
their southern counterparts (P2 and P3). The halfwidths of the same
profiles (for P1, 2, 3, 5 and 7) fitted by single Gaussians and
corrected for the instrumental broadening are
,
,
,
and
Å respectively. As the post-shock interstellar gas emitting [O III] 5007 Å has
most likely cooled to
K, these widths imply
residual turbulent motions, combined with non-turbulent motions due to
curvature of the shock fronts, of around 23 km s-1 in all of these
filamentary edges, as the width of the thermal component of the [O III] 5007 Å line will only be 0.09 Å as given by
Å.
Knowledge of the global expansion velocity
for such a complex
remnant is also desirable. In the pv arrays in Fig. 2, as detected by
Lozinskaya (1980), there is evidence of expansion along slits P2 and P7: the profiles are split by about 70 km s-1 away from the bright
filamentary edge, towards the westerly end of P2 (and see this trend
along the short length shown in Fig. 4b) and go from -15 to -60 km s-1 along the length of P7. If it is assumed that this splitting
towards the westerly end of P2 is due to the spherical expansion of
the 91
radius easterly lobe of G 65.3+5.7 then, after taking
account of the slit orientation with respect to the filamentary edge,
by extrapolation
=187
50 km s-1 is derived for this lobe
of the remnant. The lower end of the
values given by Losinskaya
(1980) (to
200 km s-1 accuracy) is therefore favoured.
Other clues to the true value of
are also in the present
observations. For instance velocity components further from
are
found along slit positions P8 and 9 which are well inside the
remnant's outer perimeter (Fig. 1a). In the pv array in Fig. 2 for P8
a component at
75 km s-1 can be seen. If this reflects
the expansion of the easterly lobe in Fig. 1a, and assuming
= -7 km s-1 and spherical expansion, then
124 km s-1
for the lobe for this position is
0.25 of the remnant's
radius towards the centre of the lobe; whereas the component with
= 0 km s-1 along the same slit length must be from the filamentary
edge of the western lobe (see Fig. 1a). Similarly, the faint profile
from P9 in Fig. 5 from near the center of the eastern lobe but just
inside the edge of the western lobe of the remnant has a velocity
component at
= +130 km s-1 which when compared with
=-7 km s-1 could imply
140 km s-1 maybe for the eastern
lobe, and most likely for the whole remnant.
All of the current estimations of
(between 124 to 187 km s-1) are
well short of the value of the 400 km s-1 forward shock velocity
required for the X-ray emission (Lu & Aschenbach 2004) and below the
lower limit (
km s-1) of the large range given by
Losinskaya (1980). If spherical expansion is assumed at
(km s-1) to
give
(arcsec) in T (yr) then the distance D(pc) is
given by
D = 0.2168
;
in that case, for
arcsec in 48 yr the D/
= 4.955. This gives
pc for
155 km s-1 but a large value of 1980 pc for
400 km s-1.
Lu & Aschenbach (2004) favour a shock wave propagating into a cloudy
ISM as described in detail by McKee & Cowie (1975). The two shock
speeds are then due to cloud shocks and the main shock travelling
through the intercloud medium. Less obviously explained is the fact
that the measured expansion velocity of the SNR as measured by the
optical filaments is also much less than the X-ray shock
velocity. The X-ray emission does not extend measurably beyond the
boundary delimited by the optical filaments. This requires that the
clouds are promptly disrupted by the shock and incorporated into the
postshock flow, and that recombination takes place. For small clouds,
the disruption takes a few "cloud crushing'' times, as defined by
Klein et al. (1994), by which time the leading shock will
be a few times
ahead of the cloud, where
is the
density contrast between the cloud and the intercloud medium. For
this leads to a displacement of a few tens of the cloud
size. As long as the density contrast or cloud sizes are not too large
the optically emitting gas will be close to the boundary of the SNR
and moving with a velocity a fraction of the initial shock speed. The
difficulty with such a picture is that a very large number of small
clouds are required to get the very smooth O III distribution
seen in our figures.
Note that the X-ray shock velocity estimate comes from the current X-ray temperature and if this has been cooled significantly by the addition of cold stationary clouds then the actual X-ray shock velocity should be even higher. However, McKee & Cowie (1975) argue that the acceleration and evaporation of the clouds that were over-run will have little effect on the energetics of the SNR as long as their filling factor is not too large. Some support for this model comes from the clumpy nature of the X-ray emission as mapped by Lu & Aschenbach (2004).
An alternative is that a pre-existing dense circumstellar shell has been encountered by the blast wave and that has led to the two different shock velocities. If the progenitor was a massive star then an H II region and a wind blown shell will have been set up around the star. Shull et al. (1985) discussed the effects of an SN explosion in a cloudy medium around a massive star. The formation of the H II region destroys any H I clouds and thus the SN explosion takes place in a cavity created by the star and then encounters a clumpy shell. Similarly, Charles et al. (1985) argue that the Cygnus loop SNR was caused by an SNR exploding in a pre-existing cavity, presumably generated by the progenitor. Such a model has the attraction that it accounts for the relatively low ambient medium density implied by a Sedov analysis of the X-ray shock emission. It also offers a possible explanation for the morphology of G 65.3+5.7, discussed below, since an axisymmetric mass-loss rate prior to the SN explosion could later govern the evolution of the shape of the remnant.
The local electron densities in the recombination zone, as measured in
Paper I, ranged between
.
For a temperature of
104 the thermal pressure is then
.
In contrast, the thermal
pressure of the X-ray gas implied by the shock speed and density
measured by Lu & Aschenbach (2004) is only
.
This is another X-ray/optical discrepancy that has been
observed before: Raymond et al. (1988) found a similar effect in the
Cygnus loop SNR. There, the shock ram pressure exceeds the thermal
pressure in both the optical and X-ray emitting gas. Raymond et al.
(1988) discuss a possibility that could be relevant here. If a blast
wave impacts a large enough cloud, a reverse shock is generated that
halts the expansion of the rarefied X-ray emitting gas (McKee &
Cowie 1975). This produces a temporary overpressure in the remnant
which then accelerates the shock. The obstacle that causes this
sequence of events could be a previously generated wind blown shell as
discussed above.
G 65.3+5.7 appears to be a very good example of a barre-shaped
supernova remnant (see Kesteven & Caswell 1987, for a full discussion
and many examples). There is a clear axis of symmetry, approximately
east-west, on either side of which are two bright limbs of emission. Such
a morphology is common and the mechanisms for producing it can be
divided into extrinsic and intrinsic effects (Gaensler 1998). An
example of the former is a well ordered local ISM magnetic field that
is then incorporated into the shell of the SNR. An example of the
latter is a previous axisymmetric outflow from the progenitor that
then influences the evolution of the SNR (see above). Gaensler (1998)
presents evidence that the barrel axes tend to be aligned with the
galactic plane, which suggests that an extrinsic effect (specifically,
the galactic magnetic field stratifying the ambient medium) is
responsible in many cases. The barrel axis of G 65.3+5.7 is at
approximately 45 deg to the plane and the remnant is displaced
from the plane by
.
This is of the order of the gas
scale height and so the orientation of the field could be begining to
depart from being parallel to the plane. Though the exact orientation
is unclear, 45 deg is not unreasonable. It does seem unlikely,
however, that interstellar clouds will be flattened and stratified at
this angle to the ISM. One of the several proposed mechanisms
involving the compression of the magnetic field (discussed by Gaensler
1998) and the generation of the bright limbs could be responsible
instead.
New images of G 65.3+5.7 emphasize that this is a good example of a barre-shaped supernova remnant.
The high resolution line profiles presented here suggest that the
global expansion is 155 km s-1 which is around the shock
velocity deduced from previous low-resolution spectra but well short
of the 400 km s-1 forward shock velocity required to generate the
X-ray emission.
This expansion velocity combined with an expansion proper motion
measurement (
arcsec in 48 yr) gives a distance of
pc.
It would be desirable to derive a more certain expansion velocity by
obtaining further deep line profiles near the remnant's geometrical
centre. The spectral resolution could be relaxed to 30 km s-1 by broadening the slit width to ensure sufficient signal to noise
ratio in a reasonable observing time for such faint nebulosity.
Furthermore, a more accurate expansion proper motion could be derived
by obtaining current higher resolution (say 1
)
images of the
filamentary edges though a filter that matches that of the baseline
POSS image.
Acknowledgements
We acknowledge the excellent support of the staff at the Skinakas and SPM observatories during these observations. J.A.L. gratefully acknowledges financial support from CONACYT (Méx) grants 32214-E and 37214 and DGAPA-UNAM IN114199. Skinakas Observatory is a collaborative project of the University of Crete, the Foundation for Research and Technology-Hellas, and the Max-Planck-Institut für extraterrestrische Physik.