Evolution of supernova remnants expanding out of the dense circumstellar matter into the rarefied interstellar medium

Abstract

We carried out 3D-hydrodynamical calculations for the interaction of expanding supernova ejecta with the dense circumstellar matter (CSM) and the rarefied interstellar medium (ISM) outside. The CSM is composed of stellarwind matter from the progenitor in its pre-supernova phase, and assumed to be axially symmetric: more matter around the equator than in the polar direction driven by rotation of the progenitor. Because of the high density of the CSM, the ionization state of the shock-heated ejecta quickly becomes equilibrium with the electron temperature. When the blast wave breaks out of the CSM into the rarefied ISM, the shocked ejecta cools rapidly due to adiabatic expansion, and hence an over-ionized/recombining plasma would be left. The ejecta is reheated by the second reverse shock due to the interaction with the ISM. We calculated the emission measure of the supernova remnant (SNR) along the line of sight, and found that the over-ionized plasma appears to be bar-like with wings in the edgeon (equatorial view), while shell-like in the face-on (polar view) geometry with respect to the rotation axis. Hot gas heated by the blast wave exists in the outermost region of the SNR with a nearly complete shell, but the X-rays therefrom are too faint to be observable. Thus, depending on the viewing angle, the SNR of the over-ionized plasma would exhibit a center-filled morphology in X-rays, like W49B, a mixed-morphology SNR. The bar-like structure is swept out by the second reverse shock and disappears eventually, and then the SNR becomes shell-like in both the equatorial and polar views in the later phase of evolution. © 2012 Astronomical Society of Japan.