Effect of Cosmic Rays on the Evolution and Momentum Deposition of Supernova Remnants

TL;DR

This paper presents a semianalytical model showing that cosmic rays significantly enhance the momentum transfer of supernova remnants, especially in radiative environments, impacting galaxy evolution models.

Contribution

It introduces a semianalytical approach that incorporates cosmic ray effects into supernova remnant evolution, aligning with hydro simulations and revealing substantial momentum boost.

Findings

Cosmic rays can double or triple SNR momentum deposition.

CR acceleration efficiencies of about 10% significantly boost momentum transfer.

In radiative environments, CR effects can increase momentum deposition by up to an order of magnitude.

Abstract

Using a semianalytical approach based on the thin-shell approximation, we calculate the long-term evolution of supernova remnants (SNRs) while also accounting for the cosmic rays (CRs) accelerated at their blast waves. Our solution reproduces the results of state-of-the-art hydro simulations across the adiabatic and radiative stages for the gas-only case, and it predicts that typical CR acceleration efficiencies ($\approx 10\%$ ) can boost SNR momentum deposition by a factor of 2--3. This enhancement can become as large as an order of magnitude in environments in which the gas experiences more severe radiative losses. This result may have a crucial impact on modeling the effect of supernova feedback on star formation and galaxy evolution.