The Chandra View of the Supernova Remnant 0506-68.0 in the Large Magellanic Cloud

A new Chandra observation of SNR 0506-68.0 (also called N23) reveals acomplex, highly structured morphology in the low energy X-ray band and anisolated compact central object in the high energy band. Spectral analysisindicates that the X-ray emission overall is dominated by thermal gas whosecomposition is consistent with swept-up ambient material. There is a stronggradient in ambient density across the diameter of the remnant. Toward thesoutheast, near a prominent star cluster, the emitting density is 10 - 23cm^{-3} while toward the northwest it has dropped to a value of only 1 cm^{-3}.The total extent of the X-ray remnant is 100" by 120" (24 pc x 29 pc for adistance of 50 kpc), somewhat larger than previously known. The remnant's ageis estimated to be ~4600 yr. One part of the remnant shows evidence forenhanced O, Ne, and perhaps Mg abundances, which is interpreted as evidence forejecta from a massive star core collapse supernova. The compact central objecthas a luminosity of a few times 10^{33} ergs/s and no obvious radio or opticalcounterpart. It does not show an extended nebula or pulsed emission as expectedfrom a young energetic pulsar, but resembles the compact central objects seenin other core collapse SNe, such as Cas A.Comment: 5 pages, including 3 postscript figs, LaTeX, accepted to appear in ApJ Letter