Sanskruti Sharma / Physics / Faculty Mentor: Sangwook Park
Kepler’s supernova remnant, the remnant of the famous historical Type Ia supernova (SN 1604), provides an excellent opportunity to study thermonuclear stellar explosions and their evolution in a modified environment. Based on our recent Chandra Large Program of deep HETG observations of Kepler’s SNR, we perform the most comprehensive measurements of radial velocities to date for numerous small metal-rich ejecta features. We also measure proper motions of these features using the wealth of archival Chandra imaging data taken at several epochs between 2000 and 2022. These high-resolution X-ray spectral and imaging data sets, combining the total of ~600 ks HETG and ~1 Ms ACIS observations, represent an unprecedented opportunity to reveal the 3-D structure of the clumpy ejecta in Kepler’s SNR. Our preliminary results show radial velocities for dozens of ejecta knots ranging from -3000 to +7000 km s⁻¹, which aligns statistically with Millard et al. (2020), despite their study using a much smaller sample size and significantly shorter exposure times than ours. We aim to expand our sample size of small ejecta knots by an order of magnitude over that by Millard et al, with the goal of constructing an extensive 3-D map of clumpy ejecta features throughout the entire Kepler’s SNR.
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