Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics
Scientific paper
1997-12-03
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
16 pages, 9 figures, 1 table, accepted for Astrophysical Journal
Scientific paper
10.1086/305627
Recent HST observations of the Crab Nebula show filamentary structures that appear to originate from the Rayleigh-Taylor (R-T) instability operating on the supernova ejecta accelerated by the pulsar-driven wind. In order to understand the origin and formation of the filaments in the Crab Nebula, we study the interaction of a pulsar wind with the uniformly expanding supernova remnant by means of numerical simulation. By performing two-dimensional numerical simulations, we find three independent instabilities in the interaction region between the pulsar wind and the expanding supernova remnant. The most important instability develops as the shock driven by the pulsar bubble becomes accelerated ($r \propto t^{6/5}$). The instability produces pronounced filamentary structures that resemble the observed filaments in the Crab Nebula. Our numerical simulations can reproduce important observational features of the Crab Nebula. The high density heads in the R-T finger tips are produced because of the compressibility of the gas. The density of these heads is found to be about 10 times higher than other regions in the fingers. The mass contained in the R-T fingers is found to be $60 % - 75 %$ of the total shocked mass and the kinetic energy within the R-T fingers is $55 % - 72 %$ of the total kinetic energy of the shocked flow. The R-T fingers are found to accelerate with a slower rate than the shock front, which is consistent with the observations. By comparing our simulations and the observations, we infer that the some finger-like filaments (region F or G in Hester's observation) started to develop about 657 years ago.
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