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K.J. Borkowski, J.M. Blondin, S.P. Reynolds (North Carolina State University)
Observations of core-collapse supernovae (SNe) have revealed the presence of extensive mixing of radioactive material in SN ejecta. The mixing of radioactive material, mostly freshly synthesized Ni, is not complete, which leads to a two-phase SN ejecta structure. The low-density phase consists of Fe bubbles, created by the energy input from radioactive Co and Ni, surrounded by compressed high-density metal-rich ejecta. During the interaction of SN ejecta with the ambient medium, the ejecta are heated to X-ray emitting temperatures. With the powerful new X-ray satellites, both Fe bubbles and ambient ejecta should be detectable in X-ray images and X-ray spectra of young supernova remnants (SNRs).
We report on the theoretical investigation of SNR dynamics with the two-phase SN ejecta. We first study a single Fe bubble immersed in an outer ejecta envelope. Next, instead of a single bubble, we consider randomly distributed Fe bubbles. The SNR dynamics was simulated with the VH-1 hydrocode in 3 dimensions. Our main finding is that the presence of Fe bubbles leads to vigorous turbulence and mixing of Fe with other heavy elements and with the ambient normal-abundance gas. Observational consequences of the two-phase ejecta on SNR X-ray spectra and on their X-ray morphologies are discussed.