Core collapse supernova remnants with ears

Aldana Grichener, Noam Soker

Published 2016-10-30Version 1

We study the morphologies of core collapse supernova remnants (CCSNRs) and find that about third of CCSNRs have two opposite `ears' protruding from their main shell, and that the typical energy that is required to inflate these ears is about 10 percents of the explosion kinetic energy. We argue that these properties are most compatible with the expectation from the explosion jet feedback mechanism (JFM). Based on previous studies of ears in CCSNRs and the similarity of some ears to those found in planetary nebulae, we assume that the ears are inflated by jets that are launched during the explosion, or a short time after it. In the JFM explosion process the last jets' launching episode takes place just after the core has been ejected. These jets expand freely, interact with the exploding gas at some distance from the center, and form the ears. Under simple geometrical assumptions we find that the extra kinetic energy of the ears is in the range of 1 to 10 percents of the explosion energy. As not all of the kinetic energy of the jets ends in the ears, we estimate that the typical kinetic energy in the jets that inflated the ears is about 5 to 15 percents of the explosion energy. This study further supports the call for a paradigm shift from neutrino-driven to jet-driven core-collapse supernova mechanisms.