Optical identification of Balmer-dominated supernova remnants in the Large Magellanic Cloud

Abstract

Optical emission-line images are presented for four SNR's that are luminous X-ray sources and that were recently discovered during an X-ray survey of the LMC. The images reveal distinct filamentary shells that are prominent in the Balmer lines of H but are either absent or very weak in forbidden O III and forbidden S II emission. One remnant exhibits clear evidence for velocity-broadened H-alpha emission, and all four are expanding into regions with a relatively low H I density. It is shown that both the broad H-alpha emission and the Balmer-dominated spectra can be understood in terms of a very high-velocity nonradiative shock encountering gas that is partially neutral. The optical, X-ray, and radio properties of the LMC remnants are compared with those of relatively young galactic SNR's. It is concluded that all four LMC remnants resulted from Type I supernovae.