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Session 40 - Supernova Remnants & SN 1987A.
Display session, Thursday, January 08
Exhibit Hall,
In this poster we address the origin of the bipolar nebula surrounding Supernova 1987A and the possibility of a binary companion for the progenitor.
Our model for the formation of the bipolar bubble is the popular interacting stellar winds scenario. This model assumes that a fast, spherically symmetric wind emanating from the central blue giant star interacted with a toroidal shaped wind expelled during the red giant phase. The new addition in our model is the use of the Wind Compressed Disk model of Bjorkman amp; Cassinelli 1994 where rotation of the Red Giant forces streamlines towards the equator forming a dense "excretion" disk. The fast blue star wind expands into this disk producing the central ring and bipolar lobes. Using a self-similar analytic model we determine the stellar rotation rate needed to produce a bipolar bubble with properties similar to that observed around Supernova 1987A. Inferences about the presence of a binary companion may be possible from these results.
