Balmer-Dominated Shocks: A Concise Review

Abstract

A concise and critical review of Balmer-dominated shocks (BDSs) is presented, summarizing the state of theory and observations, including models with/without shock precursors and their synergy with atomic physics. Observations of BDSs in supernova remnants are reviewed on an object-by-object basis. The relevance of BDSs towards understanding the acceleration of cosmic rays in shocks is emphasized. Probable and possible detections of BDSs in astrophysical objects other than supernova remnants, including pulsar wind nebulae and high-redshift galaxies, are described. The case for the continued future of studying BDSs in astrophysics is made, including their relevance towards understanding electron-ion temperature equilibration in collisionless shocks.

20 pages, 7 figures (double-columned, font size 10). Accepted by PASA. Incorporates two rounds of comments by the referee

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Cited by in corpus (73)

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• The radio surface brightness to diameter relation for galactic supernova remnants: sample selection and robust analysis with various fitting offsets
• A High-Resolution X-Ray and Optical Study of SN 1006: Asymmetric Expansion and Small-Scale Structure in a Type Ia Supernova Remnant
• Collisionless shocks in a partially ionized medium: I. Neutral return flux and its effects on acceleration of test particles
• New Evidence for Efficient Collisionless Heating of Electrons at the Reverse Shock of a Young Supernova Remnant
• Proper Motions of H-alpha filaments in the Supernova Remnant RCW 86
• The Origin of Galactic Cosmic Rays as Revealed by their Composition
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• The relation between post-shock temperature, cosmic-ray pressure and cosmic-ray escape for non-relativistic shocks
• Cosmic-Ray Acceleration Efficiency vs Temperature Equilibration: the Case of SNR 0509-67.5
• Collisionless shock in a partially ionized medium. II. Balmer emission
• HST-COS Observations of Hydrogen, Helium, Carbon and Nitrogen Emission from the SN 1987A Reverse Shock
• An Integral View of Fast Shocks around Supernova 1006
• Collisionless shocks in a partially ionized medium: III. Efficient cosmic ray acceleration
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• Observing Supernova 1987A with the Refurbished Hubble Space Telescope
• X-ray Proper Motions and Shock Speeds along the Northwest Rim of SN 1006
• Effects of Neutral Particles on Modified Shocks at Supernova Remnants
• Effects of Leakage Neutral Particles on Shocks
• Effects of Neutral Hydrogen on Cosmic Ray Precursors in Supernova Remnant Shock Waves
• The Balmer-dominated Bow Shock and Wind Nebula Structure of Gamma-ray Pulsar PSR J1741-2054
• Discovery of an Apparent High Latitude Galactic Supernova Remnant
• Excitation and charge transfer in hydrogen-proton collisions at 5--80 keV and application to astrophysical shocks
• A New, Larger Sample of Supernova Remnants in NGC 6946
• Broad Balmer line emission and cosmic ray acceleration efficiency in supernova remnant shocks
• Temperature Equilibration Behind the Shock Front: an Optical and X-ray Study of RCW 86
• Collisionless shocks in partly ionized plasma with cosmic rays: microphysics of non-thermal components
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• The ultraluminous X-ray source bubble in NGC 5585
• Simulations of Collisionless Perpendicular Shocks in Partially Ionized Plasmas
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• Recent results in cosmic ray physics and their interpretation
• The First Reported Infrared Emission from the SN 1006 Remnant
• Integral Field Spectroscopy of Balmer-Dominated Shocks in the Magellanic Cloud Supernova Remnant N103B
• Kinematics: A Clean Diagnostic for Separating Supernova Remnants from HII Regions in Nearby Galaxies
• Balmer-Dominated Shocks Exclude Hot Progenitors for Many Type Ia Supernovae
• Dynamical Evolution and Radiative Processes of Supernova Remnants
• Dynamics of X-Ray-Emitting Ejecta in the Oxygen-Rich Supernova Remnant Puppis A Revealed by the XMM-Newton RGS
• Spatially-Resolved Spectroscopy of a Balmer-Dominated Shock in the Cygnus Loop: An Extremely Thin Cosmic-Ray Precursor?
• Balmer filaments in Tycho's supernova remnant: an interplay between cosmic-ray and broad-neutral precursors
• H-alpha Emission Variability in the gamma-ray Binary LS I +61 303
• Forbidden Line Emission from Type Ia Supernova Remnants Containing Balmer-Dominated Shells
• Origin of Galactic Cosmic Rays
• The role of ionization in the shock acceleration theory
• High Energy Cosmic Rays From Supernovae
• Numerical simulations of mass loading in the tails of Bow Shock Pulsar Wind Nebulae
• Collisionally excited filaments in HST H$\alpha$ and H$\beta$ images of HH~1/2
• Evidence for thermal X-ray emission from the synchrotron dominated shocks in Tycho's supernova remnant
• Asymptotic Steady State Solution to a Bow Shock with an Infinite Mach Number
• Evidence for a Dense, Inhomogeneous Circumstellar Medium in the Type Ia SNR 0519-69.0
• Polarized Balmer Line Emission from Supernova Remnant Shock Waves Efficiently Accelerating Cosmic Rays
• VLT MUSE observations of the bubble nebula around NGC 1313 X-2 and evidence for additional photoionization
• The Nature of the Strong 24 micron Spitzer Source J222557+601148: Not a Young Galactic Supernova Remnant
• Radiative transfer of hydrogen lines from supernova remnant shock waves: contributions of 2s-state hydrogen atoms
• Spitzer and Herschel studies of dust in supernova remnants in the Small Magellanic Cloud
• Optical IFU spectroscopy of a bipolar microquasar jet in NGC 300
• Theoretical Challenges in Acceleration and Transport of Ultra High Energy Cosmic Rays: A Review
• Discovery of polarized line emission in SN1006
• Using optical lines to study particle acceleration at supernova remnants
• Linking the properties of accreting white dwarfs with the ionization state of their ambient medium
• Helium emission from Balmer-dominated shocks in Type Ia supernova remnants provides constraints to their progenitor systems
• Searching for a Galactic component in the IceCube track-like neutrino events
• Deep MUSE observations of SNR 0509-67.5 reveal a double degenerate merger progenitor
• Magnetic field generation by charge exchange in a supernova remnant in the early universe
• An Integral View of Balmer-dominated Shocks in Supernova Remnants
• Balmer-dominated shocks in Tycho's SNR: omnipresence of CRs