Donald P. Cox

Radiative cooling of a low-density plasma

The radiative cooling coefficient has been calculated for a low-density, optically thin gas of cosmic abundances in the range 10/sup 4/-10/sup 8/ K incorporating significant elements through nickel and many recently improved rate calculations. (AIP)

Ionization equilibrium and radiative cooling of a low-density plasma.

Ionization equilibrium and radiative cooling of high temperature low density plasma, noting cosmic gas cooling curve of line emission from oxygen ion transitions

Large-scale effects of supernova remnants on the Galaxy - Generation and maintenance of a hot network of tunnels

It is found that a supernova rate on the order of 1 per 50 years in the gaseous disk of our Galaxy is sufficient to generate and maintain throughout the interstellar medium a mesh of interconnected tunnels containing very low-density gas. This tunnel system would have a density of approximately 0.01 per cu cm, a temperature of about 1,000,000 K, very low magnetic field strength, tunnel radii of about 10 pc, and would occupy roughly half the interstellar volume. Such a tunnel network may already have been observed in soft X-ray emission, in ultraviolet absorption of O VI against background stars, in the seemingly chaotic distribution of local H I, and in the stringy appearance of velocity-correlated large-scale H I features.

COOLING AND EVOLUTION OF A SUPERNOVA REMNANT.

Discussion of the structure, evolution, and cooling of an old supernova remnant, aimed at providing a theoretical framework for relating remnants with similar energies and environments but of different ages. Discussed evolution details include the Sedov-Taylor blast wave, the electron-ion equipartition and thermal conduction, the temperature sag and the dynamics in the process of transition to a dense shell, and the history of remnant luminosity.

Modeling W44 as a Supernova Remnant in a Density Gradient with a Partially Formed Dense Shell and Thermal Conduction in the Hot Interior. II. The Hydrodynamic Models

We show that many observations of W44, a supernova remnant in the Galactic plane at a distance of about 2500 pc, are remarkably consistent with the simplest realistic model. The model remnant is evolving in a smooth ambient medium of fairly high density, about 6 cm-3 on average, with a substantial density gradient. At the observed time it has an age of about 20,000 yr, consistent with the age of the associated pulsar, and a radius of 11-13 pc. Over most of the outer surface, radiative cooling has become important in the postshock gas; on the denser end there has been sufficient compression of the cooled gas to develop a very thin dense half-shell of about 450 M☉, supported against further compression by nonthermal pressure. The half-shell has an expansion velocity of about 150 km s-1 and is bounded on the outer surface by a radiative shock with that speed. The deep interior of the remnant has a substantial and fairly uniform pressure, as expected from even highly idealized adiabatic models; our model, however, is never adiabatic. Thermal conduction, while the remnant is young and hot, reduces the need for expansion cooling and prevents formation of the intensely vacuous cavity characteristic of adiabatic evolution. It radically alters the interior structure from what one might expect from familiarity with the Sedov solution. At the time of observation, the temperature in the center is about 6 × 106 K, the density about 1 cm-3. The temperature decreases gradually away from the center, while the density rises. Farther out, where cooling is becoming important, the pressure drops precipitously, and the temperature in the denser gas there is quite low. We provide several analytic tools for the assembly of models of this type. We review the early evolution and shell formation analyses and their generalizations to evolution in a density gradient. We also calculate the density and temperature that should be present in the hot interior of a remnant with thermal conduction. We supply the van der Laan mechanism in a particularly useful form for the calculation of radio continuum from radiative remnants. Finally, we estimate the optical emission that should be present from fluorescence of UV light, emitted by the forming shell and the radiative shock and absorbed in the cold shell and the ambient medium, and the associated 63 μm [O I] emission. Both are in agreement with the intensity and spatial structures found in recent observations. Neither requires interaction with a dense molecular cloud for its generation. We calculate the gamma rays that should be emitted by cosmic-ray electrons and ions in the shell, interacting with the cold material, and find each capable of generating about 25% of the flux reported by EGRET for the vicinity.

A model for the distribution of material generating the soft X-ray background

The observational evidence relating to the soft X-ray diffuse background is discussed, and a simple model for its source and spatial structure is presented. In this simple model with one free parameter, the observed 1/4 keV X-ray intensity originates as thermal emission from a uniform hot plasma filling a cavity in the neutral material of the Galactic disk which contains the sun. Variations in the observed X-ray intensity are due to variations in the extent of the emission volume and therefore the emission measure of the plasma. The model reproduces the observed negative correlation between X-ray intensity and H I column density and predicts reasonable values for interstellar medium parameters. 64 refs.

Completing the evolution of supernova remnants and their bubbles

The filling fraction of hot gas in the ISM is reexamined with new calculations of the very long term evolution of SNRs and their fossil hot bubbles. Results are presented of a 1D numerical solution of the evolution of an SNR in a homogeneous medium with a nonthermal pressure corresponding to a 5-micro-G magnetic field and density of 0.2/cu cm. Comparison is made with a control simulation having no magnetic field pressure. It is found that the evolutions, once they have become radiative, differ in several significant ways, while both differ appreciably from qualitative pictures presented in the past. Over most of the evolution of either case, the hot bubble in the interior occupies only a small fraction of the shocked volume, the remainder in a thick shell of slightly compressed material. Column densities and radial distributions of O VI, N V, C IV, and Si IV as well as examples of absorption profiles for their strong UV lines are presented.

Spatial and spectral interpretation of a bright filament in the Cygnus Loop

A comparison is made of optical and UV line intensities and spatial and spectral optical line profiles of a well-defined Cygnus Loop filament with theoretical models. It is found that the sharp filament is due to the tangency to the line of sight of a large, thick sheet of emitting gas. The emitting region associated with the spur is very deep, and there is substantial gradient in shock velocity along the filament. Severe incompleteness of the recombination zone is found at the high-velocity end, and resonance scattering in the emitting region attenuates C IV and other resonance lines, as expected. There is evidence for depletion of Si and Fe relative to other elements. Nonthermal pressure apparently dominates the recombination zone of the filament. New techniques are introduced for determining the completeness of a shock and for determining the preshock density without recourse to the standard density diangostic line ratios.

The Diffuse Ionized Interstellar Medium: Structures Resulting from Ionization by O Stars

We have explored the possibility that the diffuse ionized gas of the Galaxy is kept ionized by O stars, and that such gas consists of the dilute portions of O star H II regions in a multiple component interstellar medium. To make this exploration, we calculated the H II region structures for the known Galactic O stars and compared the integral properties of the ensemble (dispersion and emission measures) with the observational data. Our model assumes a smooth intercloud (or more precisely extracloud) medium whose density depends only on z, and a statistical distribution of small, opaque clouds

Evolution of Supernova Remnant Bubbles in a Warm Diffuse Medium: Survey of Results from One-dimensional Models and Their Impact on Estimates of Interstellar Porosity

With straightforward modeling of the late evolution of supernova remnants, including a modest nonthermal contribution to the pressure in the preshock (ambient) gas, we demonstrate that in the solar neighborhood: 1. the porosity induced by the remnant population in a warm intercloud medium (n∼0.15 cm −3 ) would not be large (q≤0.2), and 2. the slowly cooling supernova remnant bubbles harbor large populations of the high-stage ions (O VI, N V, and C IV at least), sufficient to explain their mean densities in the galactic plane (though a comparable contribution may derive from OB association bubbles)