TY - JOUR
T1 - The Chandra view of the supernova remnant 0506-68.0 in the large magellanic cloud
AU - Hughes, John P.
AU - Rafelski, Marc
AU - Warren, Jessica S.
AU - Rakowski, Cara
AU - Slane, Patrick
AU - Burrows, David
AU - Nousek, John
N1 - Funding Information:
This Letter utilizes public domain data originally obtained by the MACHO Project, whose work was performed under the joint auspices of the US Department of Energy, National Nuclear Security Administration by the University of California, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under contract W-7405-Eng-48, the National Science Foundation through the Center for Particle Astrophysics of the University of California under cooperative agreement AST 88-09616, and the Mount Stromlo and Siding Spring Observatory, part of the Australian National University. We also acknowledge J. Dickel and P. Ghavamian, who helped with various aspects of this research. Partial support was provided by Chandra grant GO2-3069X to Rutgers University, NASA grant NAG5-9281 to SAO, and NASA contract NAS8-39073 to SAO.
PY - 2006/7/10
Y1 - 2006/7/10
N2 - A new Chandra observation of SNR 0506-68.0 (also called N23) reveals a complex, highly structured morphology in the low-energy X-ray band and an isolated compact central object in the high-energy band. Spectral analysis indicates that the X-ray emission overall is dominated by thermal gas whose composition is consistent with swept-up ambient material. There is a strong gradient in ambient density across the diameter of the remnant. Toward the southeast, near a prominent star cluster, the emitting density is 10-23 cm -3, while toward the northwest it has dropped to a value of only 1 cm-3. The total extent of the X-ray remnant is 100″ × 120″ (24 × 29 pc for a distance of 50 kpc), somewhat larger than previously known. The remnant's age is estimated to be ∼4600 yr. One part of the remnant shows evidence for enhanced O, Ne, and perhaps Mg abundances, which is interpreted as evidence for ejecta from a massive star core collapse supernova. The compact central object has a luminosity of a few times 10 33 ergs s-1 and no obvious radio or optical counterpart. It does not show an extended nebula or pulsed emission as expected from a young energetic pulsar, but resembles the compact central objects seen in other core collapse SNe, such as Cas A.
AB - A new Chandra observation of SNR 0506-68.0 (also called N23) reveals a complex, highly structured morphology in the low-energy X-ray band and an isolated compact central object in the high-energy band. Spectral analysis indicates that the X-ray emission overall is dominated by thermal gas whose composition is consistent with swept-up ambient material. There is a strong gradient in ambient density across the diameter of the remnant. Toward the southeast, near a prominent star cluster, the emitting density is 10-23 cm -3, while toward the northwest it has dropped to a value of only 1 cm-3. The total extent of the X-ray remnant is 100″ × 120″ (24 × 29 pc for a distance of 50 kpc), somewhat larger than previously known. The remnant's age is estimated to be ∼4600 yr. One part of the remnant shows evidence for enhanced O, Ne, and perhaps Mg abundances, which is interpreted as evidence for ejecta from a massive star core collapse supernova. The compact central object has a luminosity of a few times 10 33 ergs s-1 and no obvious radio or optical counterpart. It does not show an extended nebula or pulsed emission as expected from a young energetic pulsar, but resembles the compact central objects seen in other core collapse SNe, such as Cas A.
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U2 - 10.1086/506323
DO - 10.1086/506323
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:33746868918
SN - 0004-637X
VL - 645
SP - L117-L120
JO - Astrophysical Journal
JF - Astrophysical Journal
IS - 2 II
ER -