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Title:
Dusty Blast Wave in Cassiopeia A
Authors:
Borkowski, Kazimierz J.; Williams, B. J.; Reynolds, S. P.
Affiliation:
AA(North Carolina State Univ.), AB(North Carolina State Univ.), AC(North Carolina State Univ.)
Publication:
American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #208, #74.02
Publication Date:
09/2006
Origin:
AAS
Abstract Copyright:
(c) 2006: American Astronomical Society
Bibliographic Code:
2006AAS...208.7402B

Abstract

The Spitzer Space Telescope has revealed infrared emission from dust in the blast wave of the youngest Galactic supernova remnant Cas A. This fast 6000 km/s blast wave is sweeping up circumstellar material expelled by the Cas A supernova progenitor prior to its explosion, presumably in a slow and dense wind in its final red supergiant (RSG) evolutionary stage. Dust in the blast wave was detected through imaging at 24 and 70 microns with the Multiband Imaging Photometer for Spitzer (MIPS). We use a collisionally-heated dust model to interpret these MIPS observations. In this model, silicate grains are heated and destroyed in collisions with fast thermal electrons and ions in the blast wave. We consider a wide range in grain radii in the preshock gas, from 0.001 to 0.25 microns, with grains distributed as a power law in radius with an index of -3.5. We measured MIPS fluxes and their ratios in several regions in the north and south, and derived dust masses and plasma densities by comparing them with the dust models. The dust masses are 0.0001 solar masses in the south and several times higher in the north, while estimated electron densities range from 3 per cc in the south up to 20 per cc in the north. In order to estimate dust/gas mass ratios, we also examined Chandra X-ray spectra of the blast wave. We modeled them successfully with a combination of a thermal plane shock and a nonthermal synchrotron "srcut" model. The estimated gas masses are about 1000 times larger than dust masses. Our inferred dust content implies large depletions of several refractory elements onto dust grains in the stellar outflow of the Cas A RSG progenitor. We discuss how such depletions affect X-ray spectra produced within the dusty blast wave of Cas A.
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