Emission lines due to ionizing radiation from a compact object in the remnant of Supernova 1987A

C Fransson; M J Barlow; P J Kavanagh; J Larsson; O C Jones; B Sargent; M Meixner; P Bouchet; T Temim; G S Wright; J A D L Blommaert; N Habel; A S Hirschauer; J Hjorth; L Lenkić; T Tikkanen; R Wesson; A Coulais; O D Fox; R Gastaud; A Glasse; J Jaspers; O Krause; R M Lau; O Nayak; A Rest; L Colina; E F van Dishoeck; M Güdel; Th Henning; P-O Lagage; G Östlin; T P Ray; B Vandenbussche

doi:10.1126/science.adj5796

Emission lines due to ionizing radiation from a compact object in the remnant of Supernova 1987A

Science. 2024 Feb 23;383(6685):898-903. doi: 10.1126/science.adj5796. Epub 2024 Feb 22.

Authors

C Fransson¹, M J Barlow^#², P J Kavanagh^#^{3

4}, J Larsson^#⁵, O C Jones⁶, B Sargent^{7

8}, M Meixner⁹, P Bouchet¹⁰, T Temim¹¹, G S Wright⁶, J A D L Blommaert¹², N Habel⁹, A S Hirschauer⁷, J Hjorth¹³, L Lenkić¹⁴, T Tikkanen¹⁵, R Wesson¹⁶, A Coulais^{10

17}, O D Fox⁷, R Gastaud¹⁸, A Glasse⁶, J Jaspers^{3

4}, O Krause¹⁹, R M Lau²⁰, O Nayak²¹, A Rest^{7

8}, L Colina²², E F van Dishoeck^{23

24}, M Güdel^{19

25

26}, Th Henning¹⁹, P-O Lagage¹⁰, G Östlin¹, T P Ray⁴, B Vandenbussche²⁷

Affiliations

¹ Department of Astronomy, Stockholm University, The Oskar Klein Centre, AlbaNova, SE-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden.
² Department of Physics and Astronomy, University College London, London WC1E 6BT, UK.
³ Department of Experimental Physics, Maynooth University, Maynooth, County Kildare, Ireland.
⁴ Astronomy & Astrophyics Section, School of Cosmic Physics, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, Dublin 2, Ireland.
⁵ Department of Physics, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, The Oskar Klein Centre, AlbaNova, SE-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden.
⁶ UK Astronomy Technology Centre, Royal Observatory, Blackford Hill, Edinburgh EH9 3HJ, UK.
⁷ Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA.
⁸ Department of Physics and Astronomy, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA.
⁹ Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91109, USA.
¹⁰ Université Paris-Saclay, Université Paris Cité, Commissariat à l'Énergie Atomique et aux Énergies Alternatives, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Astrophysique Instrumentation Modélisation, Saint Aubin, France.
¹¹ Department of Astrophysical Sciences, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA.
¹² Astronomy and Astrophysics Research Group, Department of Physics and Astrophysics, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, B-1050 Brussels, Belgium.
¹³ Dark Cosmology Centre, Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, 2200 Copenhagen, Denmark.
¹⁴ Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy Science Center, Universities Space Research Association, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA 94035, USA.
¹⁵ School of Physics and Astronomy, Space Research Centre, Space Park Leicester, University of Leicester, Leicester LE4 5SP, UK.
¹⁶ School of Physics and Astronomy, Cardiff University, Cardiff CF24 3AA, UK.
¹⁷ Laboratoire d'Etudes du Rayonnement et de la Matière en Astrophysique et Atmosphères, Observatoire de Paris, Paris Sciences et Lettres Research University, National Centre for Scientific Research, Sorbonne Université, Paris, France.
¹⁸ Université Paris-Saclay, Commissariat à l'Énergie Atomique et aux Énergies Alternatives, Detectors Electronics and Computing for Physics, Gif-sur-Yvette, France.
¹⁹ Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie, D-69117 Heidelberg, Germany.
²⁰ National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory, National Science Foundation, Tucson, AZ 85719, USA.
²¹ NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20770, USA.
²² Centro de Astrobiología, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas - Instituto Nacional de Técnica Aeroespacial, Torrejón de Ardoz, E-28850, Madrid, Spain.
²³ Max-Planck Institut für Extraterrestrische Physik, D-85748 Garching, Germany.
²⁴ Leiden Observatory, 2300 RA Leiden, Netherlands.
²⁵ Department of Astrophysics, University of Vienna, A-1180 Vienna, Austria.
²⁶ Institute for Particle Physics and Astrophysics, Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich, 8093 Zürich, Switzerland.
²⁷ Institute of Astronomy, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, 3001 Leuven, Belgium.

^# Contributed equally.

PMID: 38386759
DOI: 10.1126/science.adj5796

Abstract

The nearby Supernova 1987A was accompanied by a burst of neutrino emission, which indicates that a compact object (a neutron star or black hole) was formed in the explosion. There has been no direct observation of this compact object. In this work, we observe the supernova remnant with JWST spectroscopy, finding narrow infrared emission lines of argon and sulfur. The line emission is spatially unresolved and blueshifted in velocity relative to the supernova rest frame. We interpret the lines as gas illuminated by a source of ionizing photons located close to the center of the expanding ejecta. Photoionization models show that the line ratios are consistent with ionization by a cooling neutron star or a pulsar wind nebula. The velocity shift could be evidence for a neutron star natal kick.