Enhanced CO J = 2-1/J = 1-0 Ratio as a Marker of Supernova Remnant-Molecular Cloud Interactions: The Cases of W44 and IC 443

Details Enhanced CO J = 2-1/J = 1-0 Ratio as a Marker of Supernova Remnant-Molecular Cloud Interactions: The Cases of W44 and IC 443 Enhanced CO J = 2-1/J = 1-0 Ratio as a Marker of Supernova Remnant-Molecular Cloud Interactions: The Cases of W44 and IC 443

Sep 1998

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1998apj...505..286s&link_type=abstract

The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 505, Issue 1, pp. 286-298.

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

57

Ism: Clouds, Ism: Individual: Alphanumeric: W44, Ism: Individual: Alphanumeric: Ic 443, Ism: Molecules, Radio Lines: Ism, Ism: Supernova Remnants

Scientific paper

We present results of CO J = 2-1 line mapping of molecular clouds in the vicinity of the supernova remnants (SNRs) W44 and IC 443. Large areas spanning ~1.5d x 2 deg were observed with the 9' beam of the University of Tokyo-Nobeyama Radio Observatory 60 cm Survey Telescope. We identified six giant molecular clouds (GMCs) with masses (0.3-3) x 10^5 M_&sun; around W44. Three show evidence of interaction with the SNR. In particular, one exhibits a line wing emission and an abrupt velocity shift at the position at which the cloud overlaps with the SNR. The CO J = 2-1/J = 1-0 line intensity ratio significantly exceeds unity (1.3) in the wing. In IC 443, a high-velocity line wing emission was detected in CO J = 2-1 with our 9' beam. The CO J = 2-1/J = 1-0 ratio is extremely high (>3) in the wing, which suggests that the emission comes from spatially extended optically thin (tau ~ 0.1), dense [n(H_2) ~ 10^5 cm^-3], and warm (~80 K) gas. W44 is established as a good example of an SNR interacting with GMCs, while IC 443 is in interaction with a low-mass dark cloud. The mass and kinetic energy of the shocked gas are, respectively, 1 x 10^3 M_&sun; and 4 x 10^48 ergs in W44, and 70 M_&sun; and 6 x 10^47 ergs in IC 443. A very high CO J = 2-1/J = 1-0 ratio in the line wings of a GMC may be a useful marker of interaction with an SNR. Such a marker would be extremely valuable for determining GMC-SNR associations in the inner Galaxy where numerous GMCs often lie along the line of sight. Such associations often provide the best means of determining SNR distances.

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