Pulsar wind nebulae in supernova remnants
Abstract
A spherically symmetric model is presented for the interaction of a pulsar wind with the associated supernova remnant. This results in a pulsar wind nebula whose evolution is coupled to the evolution of the surrounding supernova remnant. This evolution can be divided in three stages. The first stage is characterised by a supersonic expansion of the pulsar wind nebula into the freely expanding ejecta of the progenitor star. In the next stage the pulsar wind nebula is not steady; the pulsar wind nebula oscillates between contraction and expansion due to interaction with the reverse shock of the supernova remnant: reverberations which propagate forward and backward in the remnant. After the reverberations of the reverse shock have almost completely vanished and the supernova remnant has relaxed to a Sedov solution, the expansion of the pulsar wind nebula proceeds subsonically. In this paper we present results from hydrodynamical simulations of a pulsar wind nebula through all these stages in its evolution. The simulations were carried out with the Versatile Advection Code.
- Publication:
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arXiv e-prints
- Pub Date:
- December 2000
- DOI:
- 10.48550/arXiv.astro-ph/0012440
- arXiv:
- arXiv:astro-ph/0012440
- Bibcode:
- 2000astro.ph.12440V
- Keywords:
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- Astrophysics
- E-Print:
- 10 pages, 9 figures, submitted to Astronomy and Astrophysics