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arXiv · 1803.01006

Identification of the Central Compact Object in the young supernova remnant 1E0102.2-7219

F. P. A. Vogt·E. S. Bartlett·I. R. Seitenzahl·M. A. Dopita·P. Ghavamian·A. J. Ruiter·J. P. Terry
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Abstract

Oxygen-rich young supernova remnants are valuable objects for probing the outcome of nucleosynthetic processes in massive stars, as well as the physics of supernova explosions. Observed within a few thousand years after the supernova explosion, these systems contain fast-moving oxygen-rich and hydrogen-poor filaments visible at optical wavelengths: fragments of the progenitor's interior expelled at a few 1000 km/s during the supernova explosion. Here we report the first identification of the compact object in 1E0102.2-7219 in reprocessed Chandra X-ray Observatory data, enabled via the discovery of a ring-shaped structure visible primarily in optical recombination lines of Ne I and O I. The optical ring, discovered in integral field spectroscopy observations from the Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) at the Very Large Telescope, has a radius of $(2.10\pm0.35)$ arcsec = $(0.63\pm0.11)$ pc, and is expanding at a velocity of $90.5_{-30}^{+40}$ km/s. It surrounds an X-ray point source with an intrinsic X-ray luminosity $L_{i}$ (1.2--2.0 keV)= $(1.4\pm0.2)\times10^{33}$ erg/s. The energy distribution of the source indicates that this object is an isolated neutron star: a Central Compact Object akin to those present in the Cas A and Puppis A supernova remnants, and the first of its kind to be identified outside of our Galaxy.

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F. P. A. Vogt, E. S. Bartlett, I. R. Seitenzahl, M. A. Dopita, P. Ghavamian, A. J. Ruiter, J. P. Terry. 2018-03-02. Identification of the Central Compact Object in the young supernova remnant 1E0102.2-7219. https://arxiv.org/abs/1803.01006

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