“The Goose” Pulsar Wind Nebula of PSR J1016–5857: The Birth of a Plerion

Abstract

We report the results of X-ray (Chandra X-ray Observatory (CXO)) and radio (ATCA) observations of the pulsar wind nebula (PWN) powered by the young pulsar PSR J1016–5857, which we dub “the Goose” PWN. In both bands, the images reveal a tail-like PWN morphology that can be attributed to the pulsar’s motion. By comparing archival and new CXO observations, we measure the pulsar’s proper motion μ = 28.8 ± 7.3 mas yr−1, yielding a projected pulsar velocity v ≈ 440 ± 110 km s−1 (at d = 3.2 kpc); its direction is consistent with the PWN shape. Radio emission from the PWN is polarized, with the magnetic field oriented along the pulsar tail. The radio tail connects to a larger radio structure (not seen in X-rays), which we interpret as a relic PWN (also known as a plerion). The spectral analysis of the CXO data shows that the PWN spectrum softens from Γ = 1.7 to Γ ≈ 2.3–2.5 with increasing distance from the pulsar. The softening can be attributed to the rapid synchrotron burn-off, which would explain the lack of X-ray emission from the older relic PWN. In addition to nonthermal PWN emission, we detected thermal emission from a hot plasma, which we attribute to the host supernova remnant. The radio PWN morphology and the proper motion of the pulsar suggest that the reverse shock passed through the pulsar’s vicinity and pushed the PWN to one side.

Classifying Unidentified X-Ray Sources in the Chandra Source Catalog Using a Multiwavelength Machine-learning Approach

“…The plausible counterpart to HESS J1018-589B is PSR J1016-5857, which has an X-ray PWN and is possibly associated with SNR G284.3-1.8 (H.E.S.S. Collaboration et al 2012;Klingler et al 2022). However, we also confidently classify an AGN, 2CXO J101812.9-585930, which lies in between 1FGL J1018.6-5856 and PSR J1016-5857.…”

The nature of the X-ray filaments around bow shock pulsar wind nebulae

“…d 0 is the bow shock standoff distance; L X 1 −X 2 indicates the X-ray luminosity of the feature in the energy range specified in parentheses; and L f , w f , and sin θ f are the feature's length, width, and inclination, respectively. For the Lighthouse Nebula, we also report the X-ray luminosity in the 3-79 keV band recently measured by NuSTAR (Klingler et al 2023). ( * ) The distance is taken from the ATNF catalogue: www.atnf.csiro.au/people/pulsar/psrcat.…”

“…In light of the encouraging results obtained for the Guitar, we applied our model to the other two systems with well-surveyed X-ray filaments, the Lighthouse Nebula (Pavan et al 2016;Klingler et al 2023) and PSR J2030+4415 (de Vries & Romani 2022). The filament associated with the powerful Lighthouse Nebula is the only one also observed in hard X-rays (Klingler et al 2023), thanks to a recent NuSTAR campaign. The feature remains clearly visible up to ∼25 keV, with a width and length compatible with those inferred from the higher-resolution Chandra data.…”

“…An increasing number of bow shock pulsar wind nebulae (BSPWNe) shows evidence of filamentary X-ray structures (Hui & Becker 2007;Pavan et al 2014;Temim et al 2015;Klingler et al 2016Klingler et al , 2018Medvedev et al 2019;Marelli et al 2019;Bordas & Zhang 2020;Zhang et al 2020;Klingler et al 2020; protruding in the interstellar medium (ISM). The best characterized examples are the Guitar Nebula (Hui & Becker 2007;, PSR J2030+4415 (de Vries & Romani 2020; de , and the Lighthouse Nebula (Pavan et al 2014(Pavan et al , 2016Klingler et al 2023). The filaments appear elongated in one direction for a distance ranging from 0.6 pc in the case of the Guitar Nebula to ∼15 pc in the case of the Lighthouse, with relatively mild morphological fluctuations.…”

“…(1) de Vries et al (2022), (2) Deller et al (2019), (3) Chatterjee & Cordes (2002) (4) Pavan et al (2014), (5) Pavan et al (2016),(6) Klingler et al (2023) (7) de Vries & Romani (2022).…”