Proper motions and brightness of Cas A

To quantify the current dynamical status of various ejecta components, the proper motions and brightness evolution of a sample of 304 compact radio features have been accurately determined from high-quality interferometric observations of the remnant at lambda=6 and 20cm, spanning a total time baseline of 12yr.

A simple model of homologous expansion does not provide a good fit to the measured proper motions of the radio knots. We find that a single estimate of the ejecta expansion age is not appropriate, as the expansion derived from compact features varies azimuthally and radially in the remnant and differs for subsets of knots segregated by brightness. We verify that the bulk of the radio-emitting plasma in Cas A has indeed been significantly decelerated by the current epoch; bulk expansion ages of 2.5-4 times the actual age of the remnant are measured .