On the morphology of supernova remnants with pulsars.

Abstract

One of the intriguing aspects of supernova remnants is their morphology. While the majority of them look like hollow shells, a few, called plerions, are centrally filled like the Crab nebula, and some have a shell-plerion combination morphology. The centrally-filled component in these remnants is believed to be powered by a central pulsar. In this paper results of model calculations of the evolution of surface brightness and morphology of supernova remnants containing pulsars are presented. The paper discusses how the morphology of a supernova remnant will depend on the velocity of expansion, the density of the ambient medium into which it is expanding, and the initial period and magnetic field strength of the central pulsar.