Airplane-Wake Dynamics in Supernova Remnants

Supernova 1987A is the first supernova visible to the naked eye since Kepler's Supernova in 1604, and its recency and proximity to Earth make it a critical source of data for understanding stellar evolution and one of the most intensely studied astrophysical systems to date. Despite decades of research, the mechanism responsible for the formation of the clumps along the equatorial ring illuminated by the supernova is not well understood. In this talk, the hydrodynamic Crow instability, well known for dissipating airplane wakes, is proposed as the origin of the clumping behavior. The instability would have acted on a counter-rotating vortex pair formed by the interaction of solar wind with a gaseous circumstellar torus thought to have been ejected from the progenitor star 20,000 years before the supernova event. Analysis of the instability acting on this pair reveals a dominant wavenumber remarkably consistent with the number of observed clumps, and additional structures recently revealed by the James Webb Space Telescope further support the plausibility that the Crow instability induced the clump formation. Finally, the potential for the same mechanism to stimulate the formation of clumps in other circumstellar environments, including those in protoplanetary disks which ultimately go on to form planets, is examined.