A Northwest-Southeast Asymmetry in the Structure of the Crab Nebula

Details A Northwest-Southeast Asymmetry in the Structure of the Crab Nebula A Northwest-Southeast Asymmetry in the Structure of the Crab Nebula

Dec 2007

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2007aas...21110025l&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #211, #100.25; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 39, p.916

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

2

Scientific paper

We present the results of an HST WFPC2 imaging survey of Crab Nebula including line emission images in [O III], [S II], and [O I]. We find that there exists a strong NW-SE asymmetry seen in a number of different filament properties. One asymmetry is the length and development of Rayleigh-Taylor (R-T) fingers. The filaments in the NW are organized into long, easily distinguishable, bright R-T fingers. Longer fingers tend to have a higher degree of ionization stratification than shorter fingers. In the SE, the R-T instability is more active resulting in ejecta that is clumpy and disorganized, with R-T fingers having lower line intensities. A second asymmetry between the NW and SE is the structure of the filaments at the edge of the nebula. As discussed elsewhere, the R-T fingers in the Crab extend inward from the post-shock cooling region, visible as a `skin’ around most of the perimeter of the nebula. In the NW this skin is seen exclusively in high ionization [O III] emission, while in the SE it also frequently shows low ionization emission from [S II]. The skin is absent over the northwestern end of the nebula, indicating that in that region the shock is nonradiative. The observed NW-SE asymmetries in the filament properties likely reflect the asymmetry in the proper motion of the pulsar. The NW proper motion of the pulsar has caused the synchrotron to expand farther from the explosion center in that direction. We will present observational and theoretical evidence that may explain how the proper motion of the pulsar can cause the observed asymmetries in the Crab.

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