2016 journal article

A COMPACT X-RAY SOURCE IN THE RADIO PULSAR-WIND NEBULA G141.2+5.0

ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL LETTERS, 816(2).

By: S. Reynolds n & K. Borkowski n

co-author countries: United States of America 🇺🇸
author keywords: ISM: individual objects (G141.2+5.0); ISM: jets and outflows; pulsars: general
Source: Web Of Science
Added: August 6, 2018

We report the results of a 50 ks Chandra observation of the recently discovered radio object G141.2+5.0, presumed to be a pulsar-wind nebula. We find a moderately bright unresolved X-ray source that we designate CXOU J033712.8 615302 coincident with the central peak radio emission. An absorbed power-law fit to the 241 counts describes the data well, with absorbing column cm−2 and photon index . For a distance of 4 kpc, the unabsorbed luminosity between 0.5 and 8 keV is erg s−1 (90% confidence intervals). Both LX and Γ are quite typical of pulsars in PWNe. No extended emission is seen; we estimate a conservative upper limit to the surface brightness of any X-ray PWN near the point source to be erg cm−2 s−1 arcsec−2 between 0.5 and 8 keV, assuming the same spectrum as the point source; for a nebula of diameter , the flux limit is 6% of the flux of the point source. The steep radio spectrum of the PWN (), if continued to the X-ray without a break, predicts erg s−1, so additional spectral steepening between radio and X-rays is required, as is true of all known PWNe. The high Galactic latitude gives a z-distance of 350 pc above the Galactic plane, quite unusual for a Population I object.