Mapping the three-dimensional dust extinction toward the supernova remnant S147 - the S147 dust cloud

TL;DR

This study constructs a 3D dust extinction map toward SNR S147, revealing a new dust cloud structure at 1.22 kpc that aligns with the SNR and associated emissions, offering insights into SNR-MC interactions.

Contribution

The paper introduces a 3D extinction mapping method that uncovers a previously unrecognized dust cloud linked to SNR S147, improving understanding of SNR-MC associations.

Findings

Identified a new dust cloud at 1.22 kpc associated with SNR S147.

The dust cloud coincides with radio, CO, and gamma-ray features.

3D dust mapping offers a better approach than CO measurements alone.

Abstract

We present a three dimensional (3D) extinction analysis in the region toward the supernova remnant (SNR) S147 (G180.0-1.7) using multi-band photometric data from the Xuyi Schmidt Telescope Photometric Survey of the Galactic Anticentre (XSTPS-GAC), 2MASS and WISE. We isolate a previously unrecognised dust structure likely to be associated with SNR S147. The structure, which we term as "S147 dust cloud", is estimated to have a distance $d$ = 1.22 $\pm$ 0.21 kpc, consistent with the conjecture that S147 is associated with pulsar PSR J0538 + 2817. The cloud includes several dense clumps of relatively high extinction that locate on the radio shell of S147 and coincide spatially with the CO and gamma-ray emission features. We conclude that the usage of CO measurements to trace the SNR associated MCs is unavoidably limited by the detection threshold, dust depletion, and the difficulty of distance estimates in the outer Galaxy. 3D dust extinction mapping may provide a better way to identify and study SNR-MC interactions.