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Ejecta Knot Flickering, Mass Ablation, And Fragmentation In Cassiopeia A, Robert A. Fesen, Jordan A. Zastrow, Molly C. Hammell, J. Michael Shull, Devin W. Silvia
Ejecta Knot Flickering, Mass Ablation, And Fragmentation In Cassiopeia A, Robert A. Fesen, Jordan A. Zastrow, Molly C. Hammell, J. Michael Shull, Devin W. Silvia
Dartmouth Scholarship
Ejecta knot flickering, ablation tails, and fragmentation are expected signatures associated with the gradual dissolution of high-velocity supernova (SN) ejecta caused by their passage through an inhomogeneous circumstellar medium or interstellar medium (ISM). Such phenomena mark the initial stages of the gradual merger of SN ejecta with and the enrichment of the surrounding ISM. Here we report on an investigation of this process through changes in the optical flux and morphology of several high-velocity ejecta knots located in the outskirts of the young core-collapse SN remnant Cassiopeia A using Hubble Space Telescope images. Examination of WFPC2 F675W and combined ACS …