A complete catalogue of dusty supernova remnants in the Galactic plane

Abstract

ABSTRACT We search for far-infrared (FIR) counterparts of known supernova remnants (SNRs) in the Galactic plane (360° in longitude and $b = \pm \, 1^{\circ }$) at 70–500 μm with Herschel. We detect dust signatures in 39 SNRs out of 190, made up of 13 core-collapse supernovae (CCSNe), including 4 Pulsar Wind Nebulae (PWNe), and 2 Type Ia SNe. A further 24 FIR detected SNRs have unknown types. We confirm the FIR detection of ejecta dust within G350.1−0.3, adding to the known sample of ∼ 10 SNRs containing ejecta dust. We discover dust features at the location of a radio core at the centre of G351.2+0.1, indicating FIR emission coincident with a possible Crab-like compact object, with dust temperature and mass of Td  = 45.8 K and Md  = 0.18 M⊙, similar to the PWN G54.1+0.3. We show that the detection rate is higher among young SNRs. We produce dust temperature maps of 11 SNRs and mass maps of those with distance estimates, finding dust at temperatures $15\, \lesssim \, T_d\, \lesssim \, 40$ K. If the dust is heated by shock interactions the shocked gas must be relatively cool and/or have a low density to explain the observed low grain temperatures.