The Discovery of Balmer-dominated Filaments around the Periphery of the Supernova Remnant RCW 86

Session 46 - Supernova Remnants.
Display session, Tuesday, January 14
Metropolitan Ballroom,

[46.05] The Discovery of Balmer-dominated Filaments around the Periphery of the Supernova Remnant RCW 86

R. C. Smith (U. Michigan)

Deep H\alpha observations of the region around the supernova remnant RCW 86 have revealed a faint complex of filaments stretching along almost the complete periphery of the remnant. The optical observations consist of CCD images made with the UM/CTIO Curtis Schmidt telescope using narrow-band H\alpha, [S II], and red continuum filters. The newly discovered filaments show up only in H\alpha, providing evidence that these are so-called ``Balmer-dominated'' filaments, which are signatures of non-radiative, collisionless shocks. Comparison of the filaments with radio and X-ray images shows large scale similarities with various interesting small scale differences between the various bands.

If you would like more information about this abstract, please follow the link to www.astro.lsa.umich.edu/users/chris/www/rcw86/rcw86.html. This link was provided by the author. When you follow it, you will leave the the Web space for this meeting; to return, you should use the Back button on your browser.

The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: chris@astro.lsa.umich.edu

Program listing for Tuesday