An Integral View of Balmer-dominated Shocks in Supernova Remnants

TL;DR

This study uses integral-field spectroscopy to analyze spatial variations in Balmer-dominated shocks in supernova remnants, revealing non-thermal proton populations potentially linked to cosmic ray origins.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed spatially-resolved spectroscopic analysis of Balmer shocks in supernova remnants, highlighting shock heterogeneity and non-thermal particle populations.

Findings

Spatial variation in shock characteristics over atomic scales.

Evidence for non-thermal protons as seed particles for cosmic rays.

High-resolution spectral observations of supernova remnants.

Abstract

We present integral-field spectroscopic observations with the VIMOS-IFU at the VLT of fast (2000-3000 km/s) Balmer-dominated shocks surrounding the northwestern rim of the remnant of supernova 1006. The high spatial and spectral resolution of the instrument enable us to show that the physical characteristics of the shocks exhibit a strong spatial variation over few atomic scale lengths across 133 sky locations. Our results point to the presence of a population of non-thermal protons (10-100 keV) which might well be the seed particles for generating high-energy cosmic rays. We also present observations of Tycho's supernova remnant taken with the narrow-band tunable filter imager OSIRIS at the GTC and the Fabry-Perot interferometer GHaFaS at the WHT to resolve respectively the broad and narrow H\alpha\ lines across a large part of the remnant.