Interaction between the W51C Supernova Remnant and a Molecular Cloud. I. H i 21 Centimeter Line Observations

Details Interaction between the W51C Supernova Remnant and a Molecular Cloud. I. H i 21 Centimeter Line Observations Interaction between the W51C Supernova Remnant and a Molecular Cloud. I. H i 21 Centimeter Line Observations

Jan 1997

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1997apj...475..194k&link_type=abstract

Astrophysical Journal v.475, p.194

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

34

Ism: Clouds, Ism: Individual Alphanumeric: W51, Radio Lines: Ism, Shock Waves, Ism: Supernova Remnants

Scientific paper

We report the results of high-resolution H I 21 cm line observations of the shocked interstellar gas in the W51 complex. The shocked H I gas has been detected between vLSR ~= +85 and +180 km s-1, which is much greater than the maximum velocity (~60 km s-1) permitted by the Galactic rotation toward this direction (l = 49 deg). The H I gas is distributed along a looplike filamentary structure of ~20' x ~3' size (or ~35 pc x ~5 pc at a distance of 6 kpc). The velocity structure indicates that the H I gas is a portion of an expanding, concave shell. By comparing with the X-ray/CO distributions, we have found that the shocked H I gas is located at an interface between the X-ray--bright central region of the W51C supernova remnant (SNR) and a large molecular cloud. The correlation between the X-ray, CO, and H I emissions strongly suggests that a shock driven by the SNR is propagating into the molecular cloud. The large amount (>1200 M&sun;) of fast-moving H I gas indicates that the shock is a fast, radiative, J-type shock. The VLA line profiles yield a maximum line-of-sight shock velocity of ~=70 km s-1. A simple model in which a hemispherical H I shell is expanding into a cylindrical cloud from the side could explain the observed morphology and velocity structure of the H I gas. The shock velocity corrected for the projection is ~100 km s-1. We derive the shock parameters and discuss the implications for the SNR W51C.

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