An Integral View of Fast Shocks around Supernova 1006

摘要

Supernova remnants are among the most spectacular examples of astrophysicalpistons in our cosmic neighborhood. The gas expelled by the supernova explosionis launched with velocities ~ 1000 km/s into the ambient, tenuous interstellarmedium, producing shocks that excite hydrogen lines. We have used an opticalintegral-field spectrograph to obtain high-resolution spatial-spectral mapsthat allow us to study in detail the shocks in the northwestern rim ofsupernova 1006. The two-component H\alpha\ line is detected at 133 skylocations. Variations in the broad line widths and the broad-to-narrow lineintensity ratios across tens of atomic mean free paths suggest the presence ofsuprathermal protons, the potential seed particles for generating high-energycosmic-rays.