On the Origin of Strong Magnetic Fields in Young Supernova Remnants

Abstract

Young supernova remnants such as Tycho generally exhibit a bright circular clumpy shell in both radio and X-ray emission. For several young remnants, various arguments suggest that the magnetic field is larger than can be explained by compression of a few $\mu G$ ambient magnetic field by the shock wave. Radio polarization studies reveal a net radial orientation of magnetic fields in the shell which cannot be explained by the simple compression either. We model Rayleigh-Taylor instability at the interface of the ejecta and the shocked ambient medium to explain these observations. We have performed multidimensional MHD simulations of the instability in the shell of a Type-I supernova remnant for the first time utilizing a moving grid technique which allows us to follow the growth of the instability and its effect on the local magnetic field in detail. We find that the evolution of the instability is very sensitive to the deceleration of the ejecta and the evolutionary stage of the remnant. As the reverse shock enters the inner uniform density region, Chevalier's self-similar stage ends and the thickness of radio shell increases and the instability weakens. Our simulation shows that Rayleigh-Taylor and Kelvin-Helmholtz instabilities amplify ambient magnetic fields locally by as much as a factor of 60 around dense fingers due to stretching, winding, and compression. Globally, the amount of magnetic-field amplification is low and the magnetic energy density reaches only about 0.3% of the turbulent energy density at the end of simulation. Strong magnetic field lines draped around the fingers produce the radial B-vector polarization, whereas thermal bremsstrahlung from the dense fingers themselves produce the clumpy X-ray emission. As a result, the X-ray emission peaks inside of the radio emission.

Accepted for the publication in ApJ, 31 pages, 16 Postscript figures

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