Non-Thermal Aspects of Supernova Remnants

Abstract

Supernova remnants have played a vital part in the development of modern astronomy. The discovery and identification of the radio sources Taurus A and Cassiopeia A provided a crucial impetus to the then infant science of radio astronomy. The prediction of linear polarisation by Shklovskii and its subsequent detection furnished the first evidence for the widespread importance of non-thermal processes within astronomical objects. However supernova remnants are now most often viewed as lying at the interface between the physics of the explosion and the astronomical description of the interstellar medium, telling us about the energy of the former and the ambient structure of the latter.

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