The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society (천문학회보)

The Korean Astronomical Society (한국천문학회)
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Phosphorus in the Young Supernova Remnant Cassiopeia A

  • Koo, Bon-Chul (Department of Physics and Astronomy, Seoul National University) ;
  • Lee, Yong-Hyun (Department of Physics and Astronomy, Seoul National University) ;
  • Moon, Dae-Sik (Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Toronto) ;
  • Yoon, Sung-Chul (Department of Physics and Astronomy, Seoul National University) ;
  • Raymond, John C. (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics)
  • Published : 2014.04.10
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Abstract

Phosphorus ($^{31}P$), which is essential for life, is thought to be synthesized in massive stars and dispersed into interstellar space when these stars explode as supernovae (SNe). Here we report on near-infrared spectroscopic observations of the young SN remnant Cassiopeia A, which show that the abundance ratio of phosphorus to the major nucleosynthetic product iron ($^{56}Fe$) in SN material is up to 100 times the average ratio of the Milky Way, confirming that phosphorus is produced in SNe. The observed range is compatible with predictions from SN nucleosynthetic models but not with the scenario in which the chemical elements in the inner SN layers are completely mixed by hydrodynamic instabilities during the explosion.

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