The Presupernova H II Region around SN 1987A

Details The Presupernova H II Region around SN 1987A The Presupernova H II Region around SN 1987A

Oct 1995

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1995apj...452l..45c&link_type=abstract

Astrophysical Journal Letters v.452, p.L45

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

109

Stars: Circumstellar Matter, Stars: Mass Loss, Stars: Supernovae: Individual Alphanumeric: Sn 1987A, Ism: Supernova Remnants

Scientific paper

The slow expansion of the bright ring around SN 1987A and the large size estimated for the radio source at an age of ~1500 days suggest a low mass-loss rate, M dot , from the blue supergiant progenitor star; we adopt M dot = 7.5 x 10-8 M&sun; yr-1 and a wind velocity vw = 450 km s-1 as standard values. This wind density would not give substantial radio free-free absorption during the first few days when low-frequency absorption was observed, but the turnover can be attributed to synchrotron self-absorption. The X-ray and radio emission observed since 1990 require that the supernova shock be interacting with denser gas than that in the free wind. We propose that it is interacting with an H II region created by the B3 Ia progenitor star in the swept-up red supergiant wind. The H II region extends from a radius rII ~ 3 x 1017 cm to the ring radius R = 6 x 1017 cm in the equatorial plane and has a hydrogen density ~102 cm-3. The shock front will not reach the dense ring until the year 2005 +/- 3. The X-ray luminosity should slowly increase until that time. The equatorial ionization front is trapped in the swept-up gas; the dense ring and its associated bipolar nebula are the initially neutral part of the shell. In the polar direction, the ionization front broke out of the swept-up gas, and there is no dense neutral shell, consistent with the observed lack of a thin shell in that direction.

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