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X-ray Studies of the Pulsar Wind Nebula Around PSR B0540-69

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 July 2016

R. Petre ,
U. Hwang ,
S. S. Holt  and
R. M. Williams
R. Petre
Affiliation:
Laboratory for High Energy Astrophysics, NASA/GSFC, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA
U. Hwang
Affiliation:
Laboratory for High Energy Astrophysics, NASA/GSFC, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA
S. S. Holt
Affiliation:
F. W. Olin College of Engineering, Needham, MA 02492, USA
R. M. Williams
Affiliation:
Department of Astronomy, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL 61801, USA

Abstract

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The pulsar wind nebula (PWN) surrounding the 50-ms pulsar B0540-69 in the Large Magellanic Cloud shares many properties with the Crab Nebula, the canonical Galactic PWN. We have used the ACIS instrument on the Chandra X-ray Observatory to perform spatially resolved spectroscopy of the PWN. The spectrum of the inner 10″ is characterized by a simple power law, with a spectral index that steepens strongly with radius. Outside the central 10″ the spectra also require a thermal component. This diameter corresponds to a shell detected in [OIII], suggesting that this shell represents a skin around the PWN, in analogy to the Crab. We infer the value of several key PWN parameters, including σ, the average ratio of electromagnetic to particle flux.

Information

Type
Part 4: Pulsar Wind Nebulae and Their Environments
Information
Symposium - International Astronomical Union , Volume 218: Young Neutrons Stars and their Environments , 2004 , pp. 189 - 192
Copyright
Copyright © Astronomical Society of the Pacific 2004 

References

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