Radio SNRs in the Magellanic Clouds as probes of shock microphysics

Rodolfo Barniol Duran, Joseph F. Whitehead, Dimitrios Giannios

Published 2016-03-31Version 1

A large number of radio supernova remnants (SNRs) have been resolved in our Galaxy and nearby ones. These remnants are thought to be produced via synchrotron emission from electrons accelerated by the shock that the supernova ejecta drives into the external medium. Here we consider the sample of radio SNRs in the Magellanic Clouds. Given the size of a radio SNR and its flux, we can constrain $\sim \epsilon_e \epsilon_B \sim 10^{-3}$, which are the fractions of dissipated energy that goes into non-thermal electrons and magnetic field, respectively. These estimates do not depend on the largely uncertain values of the external density and the age of the SNR. We use this theory to develop a Monte Carlo scheme that reproduces the observed distribution of radio fluxes and sizes of the population of radio SNRs in the Magellanic Clouds. This simple model provides a framework that could potentially be applied to other galaxies with complete radio SNRs samples.