Proper Motions and Brightness Variations of Nonthermal X-ray Filaments in the Cassiopeia A Supernova Remnant

TL;DR

This study uses Chandra X-ray data to analyze the motion and brightness changes of nonthermal filaments in Cassiopeia A, revealing insights into shock velocities, cosmic ray acceleration, and filament origins.

Contribution

It provides a detailed model of Cassiopeia A's evolution, linking filament brightness variations to shock phenomena and proposing that interior filaments are likely projected forward shock features.

Findings

Forward shock velocities range between 4200 and 5200 km/s.

Brightness variations occur in some forward shock filaments.

Interior nonthermal filaments may be projections of forward shock filaments.

Abstract

We present Chandra ACIS X-ray observations of the Galactic supernova remnant Cassiopeia A taken in December 2007. Combining these data with previous archival Chandra observations taken in 2000, 2002, and 2004, we estimate the remnant's forward shock velocity at various points around the outermost shell to range between 4200 and 5200 +/- 500 km/s. Using these results together with previous analyses of Cas A's X-ray emission, we present a model for the evolution of Cas A and find that it's expansion is well fit by a rho_ej ~ r^{-(7-9)} ejecta profile running into a circumstellar wind. We further find that while the position of the reverse shock in this model is consistent with that measured in the X-rays, in order to match the forward shock velocity and radius we had to assume that ~ 30% of the explosion energy has gone into accelerating cosmic rays at the forward shock. The new X-ray images also show that brightness variations can occur for some forward shock filaments like that seen for several nonthermal filaments seen projected in the interior of the remnant. Spectral fits to exterior forward shock filaments and interior nonthermal filaments show that they exhibit similar spectra. This together with similar flux variations suggests that interior nonthermal filaments might be simply forward shock filaments seen in projection and not located at the reverse shock as has been recently proposed.