Chandra Imaging of the X-Ray Nebula Powered by Pulsar B1509–58

By B. Gaensler, J. Arons, Victoria Kaspi, M. Pivovaroff, N. Kawai, K. T. CfA, Mit, Uc Berkeley, U. McGill, Tokyo Institute of Technology and 2 more. 2001

150 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We present observations with the Chandra X-Ray Observatory of the pulsar wind nebula (PWN) powered by the energetic young pulsar B1509-58. These data confirm the complicated morphology of the system indicated by previous observations, and in addition reveal several new components to the nebula. The overall PWN shows a clear symmetry axis oriented at a position angle 150° ± 5° (north through east), which we argue corresponds to the pulsar spin axis. We show that a previously identified radio feature matches well with the overall extent of the X-ray PWN, and propose the former as the long-sought radio nebula powered by the pulsar. We further identify a bright collimated feature, at least 4' long, lying along the nebula's main symmetry axis; we interpret this feature as a physical outflow from the pulsar, and infer a velocity for this jet of greater than 0.2c. The lack of any observed counterjet implies that the pulsar spin axis is inclined at ~30° to the line of sight, contrary to previous estimates made from lower resolution data. We also identify a variety of compact features close to the pulsar. A pair of semicircular X-ray arcs lie 17'' and 30'' to the north of the pulsar; the latter arc shows a highly polarized radio counterpart. We show that these features can be interpreted as ion-compression wisps in a particle-dominated equatorial flow, and use their properties to infer a ratio of electromagnetic to particle energy in pairs at the wind shock σ ~ 0.005, similar to that seen in the Crab Nebula. We further identify several compact knots seen very close to the pulsar; we use these to infer σ < 0.003 at a separation from the pulsar of 0.1 pc.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Geophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/e9064fec455b28ba26962c0f84175bafc852a50e

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Citations in the corpus

Young Core-Collapse Supernova Remnants and Their Supernovae (2004, background): “This estimate is quite uncertain because of the uncertain radio observations and the possibility that the spectrum flattens just below X-ray wavelengths (Gaensler et al. 2002).”
Axially symmetric relativistic MHD simulations of Pulsar Wind Nebulae in Supernova Remnants. On the origin of torus and jet-like features (2004, unknown): “Similar features have been observed also in a number of other objects, namely around the Vela pulsar (Helfand et al. 2001; Pavlov et al. 2003), PSR 1509-58 (Gaensler et al. 2002) and in the supernova remnants G0.”
Synchrotron nebulae created by anisotropic magnetized pulsar winds (2004, background): “As similar structures have been found in other pulsar wind nebulae (Helfand, Gotthelf & Halpern 2001; Pavlov et al. 2001; Gaensler, Pivovaroff & Garmire 2001; Gaensler et al. 2002; Lu et al. 2002), this is likely to be a generic phenomenon.”
Magnetic Fields in Supernova Remnants and Pulsar-Wind Nebulae (2011, background): “…σ corresponds to the ratio of electromagnetic energy to particle energy at the wind shock, and is usually much less than one (Kennel & Coroniti 1984; Gaensler et al. 2002): the shocked wind is particle-dominated (σ ≪ 1), in contrast to the unshocked wind which is expected to be…”
Magnetars in the Metagalaxy: An Origin for Ultra-High-Energy Cosmic Rays in the Nearby Universe (2002, background): “…by the pulsar are confined by the inertia of the SN ejecta until times large compared to their ages when we see them, as is the case in the Crab Nebula (Hester et al. 1996), or by the surrounding CSM or ISM, as might be the case for the nebula around PSR 1509 58 (e.g., Gaensler et al. 2002).”
The Variable Jet of the Vela Pulsar (2003, methodology): “Particularly detailed Chandra images have been obtained for PWNs around the Crab pulsar (Mori et al. 2002; Hester et al. 2002), Vela pulsar (Helfand, Gotthelf, & Halpern 2001; Pavlov et al. 2001a), and PSR B1509 58 (Gaensler et al. 2002).”
The evolution and structure of pulsar wind nebulae (2006, methodology): “There appears to be a wide variation in the fraction of Ė channeled into PWN jets, ranging from ∼ 2.5 × 10−5 in 3C 58 to nearly 10−3 for the PWN powered by PSR B1509– 58, based on their synchrotron spectra (Gaensler et al. 2002a, Slane et al. 2004).”