Tracing the ejecta structure of supernova 1987A: Insights and diagnostics from 3D magnetohydrodynamic simulations

Vol. 699
6. Interstellar and circumstellar matter

Tracing the ejecta structure of supernova 1987A: Insights and diagnostics from 3D magnetohydrodynamic simulations

This paper presents an ingenious radiation magnetohydrodynamic simulation of the development of the SN 1987A ejecta and their interaction with the complex circumstellar environment. Three-dimensional reconstructions, based on historic and contemporary multiwavelength spectroscopy and imaging, are used to verify the simulations. The authors reproduce the available element, dynamical, and polarization maps of the structure. These are then simulated for a few decades into the future. The authors then make a qualitative leap and project the supernova remnant for five millennia, as would be the case for a typically observed field supernova remnant; in this simulation we see the survival of fine structure and the persistence of signatures of the binary merger that is thought to be the origin of the progenitor. The paper is an exemplar of what can be done to connect the (few) well-observed real-time transient events with their far later observational manifestations.