麦哲伦星云里的超新星研究
Light echoes from ancient supernovae in the Large Magellanic Cloud
Armin Rest(1), Nicholas B. Suntzeff(1), Knut Olsen(1), Jose Luis Prieto(2), R. Chris Smith(1), Douglas L. Welch(3), Andrew Becker(4), Marcel Bergmann(5), Alejandro Clocchiatti(6), Kem Cook(7), Arti Garg(8), Mark Huber(7), Gajus Miknaitis(4), Dante Minniti(6), Sergei Nikolaev(7) and Christopher Stubbs(8)
The light from historical supernovae could in principle still be visible as scattered-light echoes centuries after the explosion(1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6). The detection of light echoes could allow us to pinpoint the supernova event both in position and age and, most importantly, permit the acquisition of spectra to determine the 'type' of the supernova centuries after the direct light from the explosion first reached Earth. Although echoes have been discovered around some nearby extragalactic supernovae(7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13), targeted searches have not found any echoes in the regions of historical Galactic supernovae(14, 15, 16). Here we report three faint variable-surface-brightness complexes with high apparent proper motions pointing back to three of the six smallest (and probably youngest) previously catalogued supernova remnants in the Large Magellanic Cloud, which are believed to have been thermonuclear (type Ia) supernovae(17). Using the distance and apparent proper motions of these echo arcs, we estimate ages of 610 and 410 years for two of them.
1. Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, National Optical Astronomy Observatory, La Serena, Chile
2. Department of Astronomy, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 43210, USA
3. Department of Physics & Astronomy, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario L8S 4M1, Canada
4. Department of Astronomy, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195, USA
5. Gemini Observatory, La Serena, Chile
6. Departamento de Astronomía y Astrofísica, Pontifica Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile
7. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, California 94550, USA
8. Department of Physics and Harvard/Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA
Correspondence to: Nicholas B. Suntzeff(1) Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to N.B.S. (Email: nsuntzeff@ctio.noao.edu).
来自大麦哲伦星云 中远古的 超新星 的光回波
Armin Rest(1) , Nicholas B. Suntzeff(1) , Knut Olsen(1) , Jose Luis Prieto(2) , R. Chris Smith(1) ,Douglas L. Welch(3) ,Andrew Becker(4) ,Marcel Bergmann(5) , Alejandro Clocchiatti(6) , Kem Cook(7), Arti Garg(8), Mark Huber(7) , Gajus Miknaitis(4) , Dante Minniti(6) , Sergei Nikolaev(7) 和Christopher Stubbs(8)
来自历史上过去的 超新星 的光在 爆发(1,2,3,4,5,6) 之后原则上仍然可以看得见的 继续从中心位置散布-光回波. 侦测 光的回波可以帮助我们精确地发现超新星事件的点包括位置和年龄 , 最重要的是 , 在来自爆发的第一束光直接到达地球之后 可以获得 光谱范围 决定 超新星核心'类型'。 虽然我们发现了一些附近的 银河系外的 超新星 回波(7,8,9,10,11,12,13), 不过没有在搜寻(14,15,16) 的区域发现过去的银河 超新星的任何回波. 我们 报告里三个微弱的可变的- 表面的- 光 联合体 和高速的自行视运动点显然的向后地指向的先前在大 麦哲伦星 云中编入目录的超新星残骸里六个中的最小的三个( 或许很年轻), 相信有是高能原子核反应的 (Ia型) 超新星(17)。 使用这些回声弧的外表自行视运动和距离 , 我们估计他们中的两个年龄为 610 和 410 年。 |