Skip to main content

Carbon, Helium, and Proton Kinetic Temperatures in a Cygnus Loop Shock Wave

Article

Publications

Complete Citation

Overview

Abstract

  • Observations of SN 1006 have shown that ions and electrons in the plasma behind fast supernova remnant shock waves are far from equilibrium, with the electron temperature much lower than the proton temperature and ion temperatures approximately proportional to ion mass. In the ~360 km s-1shock waves of the Cygnus Loop, on the other hand, electron and ion temperatures are roughly equal, and there is evidence that the oxygen kinetic temperature is not far from the proton temperature. In this paper, we report observations of the He ii ?1640 line and the C iv ?1550 doublet in a 360 km s-1shock in the Cygnus Loop. While the best-fit kinetic temperatures are somewhat higher than the proton temperature, the temperatures of He and C are consistent with the proton temperature and the upper limits are 0.5 and 0.3 times the mass-proportional temperatures, implying efficient thermal equilibration in this collisionless shock. The equilibration of helium and hydrogen affects the conversion between proton temperatures determined from Ha line profiles and shock speeds, and the efficient equilibration found here reduces the shock speed estimates and the distance estimate to the Cygnus Loop of Medina et al. to about 800 pc.

Publication Date

  • 2015

Authors