Who Turned off the lights: Evidence of a Power-loss Threshold for Generating a Bright Pulsar Wind Nebula.

Details Who Turned off the lights: Evidence of a Power-loss Threshold for Generating a Bright Pulsar Wind Nebula. Who Turned off the lights: Evidence of a Power-loss Threshold for Generating a Bright Pulsar Wind Nebula.

Aug 2004

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2004head....8.0807g&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, HEAD meeting #8, #08.07; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 36, p.917

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

1

Scientific paper

We report further results from an ongoing spectroscopic X-ray survey of energetic rotation-powered pulsars using data obtained with the Chandra X-ray observatory. It is shown that all measured pulsars with ˙ E > ˙ Ec ≈ 4 ×\ 1036 erg s-1 are X-ray bright, manifest a distinct pulsar wind nebula (PWN), and are associated with a supernova event, either historically or via a thermal remnant. Over half these systems reside in shell-like supernova remnants. Below ˙ Ec, the 2-10 keV PWN flux ratio FPWN}/F{PSR is found to decreases by an order-of-magnitude. This result is consistent with the lack of detected radio PWN for pulsar with measure spin-down power below the X-ray derived threshold. An ˙ E threshold is also consistent with a lower bound on the 2-10 keV spectral index Γ min = 0.5 observed for rotation-powered pulsars (Gotthelf 2003). The apparent lack of bright pulsar nebulae below a critical ˙ Ec suggests a change in the particle injection spectrum and serves as a constraint on emission models for rotation-powered pulsars. This results implies that neither a young age nor a high density environment is found to be a sufficient condition for generating a PWN.
This work is made possible by NASA LTSA grant NAG 5-7935.

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