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[ITAL]Chandra X-Ray Observatory[/ITAL] Study of Vela Shrapnel A

2001; IOP Publishing; Volume: 559; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1086/323653

1538-4357

Emi Miyata, H. Tsunemi, B. Aschenbach, Koji Mori,

Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena

We present high-resolution Chandra observations of shrapnel A in the vicinity of the Vela supernova remnant. The Chandra image reveals a bright X-ray region at the head position of shrapnel A and a fainter extended tail. The spectral analysis shows that the plasma is in a condition of nonequilibrium ionization. The abundance of O is 0.34 times that of the solar value, whereas that of Si is 3 times solar, showing an anomalous abundance ratio for the two elements. The ionization timescale indicates that the shrapnel had been heated up about 104 yr ago. We confirm that the pressure in the head region is ≃10 times higher than that in the tail region, which is not explained by a simple blast-wave model. These facts strongly support the view that shrapnel A is a fragment of the progenitor star created in the supernova explosion.