High Forbidden-to-resonance Line Ratio of O VII Discovered from the Cygnus Loop

Charge exchange (CX) is an important process in shock physics because it indicates an interaction between downstream ions and ambient neutral hydrogen, suggesting the presence of a collisionless shock. We present a high-resolution spectroscopy of an X-ray bright spot in a nearby supernova remnant (SNR), the Cygnus Loop, with the Reflection Grating Spectrometer (RGS) on board XMM-Newton. The target is a compact knotty structure called the “southwestern knot” (SW-K) located at the outer edge of the shell, where the blast wave is likely interacting with dense surrounding materials. The RGS spectrum of the SW-K shows details of the line features below ∼1 keV, where we discover a high forbidden-to-resonance line ratio of O VII Heα. The soft-band (10-35 Å) spectrum is well explained by a thermal component with a CX X-ray emission obscured by neutral and ionized absorbers. The presence of the CX X-ray emission will provide new insights into the shock physics of SNRs. The high-resolution spectroscopy also reveals that the CNO, Ne, and Fe abundances are truly lower than the solar values (0.2-0.4 solar) at the SW-K region. Our result gives a clue to solving the previously known “low-abundance problem” reported from a number of evolved SNRs.