Pulsar wind nebulae created by fast-moving pulsars

Abstract

We review multiwavelength properties of pulsar wind nebulae created by supersonically moving pulsars and the effects of pulsar motion on the pulsar wind nebulae morphologies and the ambient medium. Supersonic pulsar wind nebulae are characterized by bow-shaped shocks around the pulsar and/or cometary tails filled with the shocked pulsar wind. In the past several years significant advances in supersonic pulsar wind nebula studies have been made in deep observations with the Chandra and XMM-Newton X-ray observatories and the Hubble Space Telescope. In particular, these observations have revealed very diverse supersonic pulsar wind nebula morphologies in the pulsar vicinity, different spectral behaviours of long pulsar tails, the presence of puzzling outflows misaligned with the pulsar velocity and far-UV bow shocks. Here we review the current observational status focusing on recent developments and their implications.

X-ray studies of the gamma-ray pulsar J1826−1256 and its pulsar wind nebula with Chandra and XMM–Newton

“…Note that Kargaltsev et al (2017) suggested another geometry of the system, which is shown in the bottom panel of Fig. 6 (see also their fig.…”

“…Studies of the latter objects, in turn, provide additional information about pulsar parameters (e.g. ages, distances, proper motions, geometries) and interaction of relativistic pulsar winds with the ambient medium (e.g., Gaensler & Slane 2006;Kargaltsev et al 2017).…”

Studying the γ-ray pulsar J1932+1916 and its pulsar wind nebula with Chandra

“…There is another interpretation of 'lateral tails' as jets or an equatorial torus bent back by the ram pressure [6,7,8]. We show possible geometries in figure 2.…”

On the nature of radio filaments near the Galactic Centre

“…Consider a pulsar with spindown powerĖ moving with velocity vp through a medium of particle density n (see e.g. Kargaltsev et al 2017, for review). The stand-off distance is…”