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| Paper: |
Rejuvenating the Shells of Supernova Remnants by Pulsar Winds |
| Volume: |
271, Neutron Stars in Supernova Remnants |
| Page: |
135 |
| Authors: |
van der Swaluw, E.; Achterberg, A.; Gallant, Y. A. |
| Abstract: |
We reconsider the rejuvenation mechanism as proposed by Shull, Fesen &Saken (1989). These authors suggest that an active pulsar can catch up with and rejuvenate the shell of the associated supernova remnant. The morphologies of the SNRs G5.4-1.2 and CTB 80 seem to confirm this rejuvenation mechanism. The spindown energy is deposited by the pulsar as a relativistic pulsar wind, and has sufficient power to explain the observed radio emission observed in these remnants. Shull et al. (1989) did not explain the observed length-scales of the rejuvenated parts of the SNR shell. Therefore one needs to consider the diffusive transport of the injected electrons by the pulsar wind. We propose to apply a diffusion mechanism as introduced by Jokipii (1987), which makes a distinction between diffusion along the magnetic field lines and perpendicular to the magnetic field lines, parameterized by the gyro factor, eta. We show that one has to assume a high value for the gyro factor, eta ~ 103-104, i.e. diffusion of the electrons along the magnetic fiel d line much faster then perpendicular to the magnetic field line, in order for the rejuvenation mechanism to work on the observed length-scales. |
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