THE MORPHOLOGY AND DYNAMICS OF JET-DRIVEN SUPERNOVA REMNANTS: THE CASE OF W49B

• Main Authors: González-Casanova, Diego F. (Author), De Colle, Fabio (Author), Ramirez-Ruiz, Enrico (Author), Lopez, Laura A. (Contributor)
• Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics (Contributor), MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research (Contributor)
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: IOP Publishing, 2015-01-29T17:34:56Z.
• Subjects: Article
• Online Access: Get fulltext

The circumstellar medium (CSM) of a massive star is modified by its winds before a supernova (SN) explosion occurs, and thus the evolution of the resulting supernova remnant (SNR) is influenced by both the geometry of the explosion as well as the complex structure of the CSM. Motivated by recent work suggesting the SNR W49B was a jet-driven SN expanding in a complex CSM, we explore how the dynamics and the metal distributions in a jet-driven explosion are modified by the interaction with the surrounding environment. In particular, we perform hydrodynamical calculations to study the dynamics and explosive nucleosynthesis of a jet-driven SN triggered by the collapse of a 25 M[subscript ☉] Wolf-Rayet star and its subsequent interaction with the CSM up to several hundred years following the explosion. We find that although the CSM has small-scale effects on the structure of the SNR, the overall morphology and abundance patterns are reflective of the initial asymmetry of the SN explosion. Thus, we predict that jet-driven SNRs, such as W49B, should be identifiable based on morphology and abundance patterns at ages up to several hundred years, even if they expand into a complex CSM environment.
David & Lucile Packard Foundation
National Science Foundation (U.S.) (Grant AST-0847563)
DGAPA-PAPIIT-UNAM (Grant IA101413-2)
United States. National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Einstein Postdoctoral Fellowship Award
MIT Department of Physics Pappalardo Program