Line-of-sight Shell Structure of the Cygnus Loop

TL;DR

This study used X-ray observations to analyze the shell structure of the Cygnus Loop, revealing complex plasma components, limb-brightening, blowouts, and non-uniform cavity walls, supporting a cavity explosion origin.

Contribution

It provides a detailed plasma and shell structure analysis of the Cygnus Loop, highlighting non-uniform cavity walls and blowouts, which advances understanding of its explosion mechanism.

Findings

Limb-brightening structure confirmed in ISM component flux distribution.

Identified a large blowout region along the line of sight.

Cygnus Loop's emission measure distribution suggests a cavity explosion origin.

Abstract

We conducted a comprehensive study on the shell structure of the Cygnus Loop using 41 observation data obtained by the Suzaku and the XMM-Newton satellites. To investigate the detailed plasma structure of the Cygnus Loop, we divided our fields of view into 1042 box regions. From the spectral analysis, the spectra obtained from the limb of the Loop are well fitted by the single-component non-equilibrium ionization plasma model. On the other hand, the spectra obtained from the inner regions are well fitted by the two-component model. As a result, we confirmed that the low-temperature and the high-temperature components originated from the surrounding interstellar matter (ISM) and the ejecta of the Loop, respectively. From the best-fit results, we showed a flux distribution of the ISM component. The distribution clearly shows the limb-brightening structure, and we found out some low-flux regions. Among them, the south blowout region has the lowest flux. We also found other large low-flux regions at slightly west and the northeast from the center. We estimated the former thin shell region to be 1.3 degrees in diameter and concluded that there exists a blowout along the line of sight in addition to the south blowout. We also calculated the emission measure distribution of the ISM component and showed that the Cygnus Loop is far from the result obtained by a simple Sedov evolution model. From the results, we support that the Cygnus Loop originated from a cavity explosion. The emission measure distribution also suggests that the cavity-wall density is higher in the northeast than that in the southwest. These results suggest that the thickness of the cavity wall surrounding the Cygnus Loop is not uniform.