The Crab Nebula's Dynamical Age as Measured from its Northern Filamentary Jet

Abstract

We present a deep [O III] 4959,5007 image of the northern filamentary jet in the Crab Nebula taken with the 8.2m Subaru telescope. Using this image and an image taken with the KPNO 4m in 1988 (Fesen & Staker 1993), we have computed proper motions for 35 locations in the jet. The results suggest that when compared to the main body of the remnant, the jet experienced less outward acceleration from the central pulsar's rapidly expanding synchrotron nebula. The jet's apparent expansion rate yields an undecelerated explosion date for the Crab Nebula of 1055 plus or minus 24 C.E., a date much closer to the appearance of the historic 1054 C.E. guest star than the 1120 - 1140 C.E. dates estimated in previous studies using filaments located within the remnant's main nebula. Our proper motion measurements suggest the jet likely formed during the 1054 supernova explosion and represents the remnant's highest velocity knots possibly associated with a suspected N-S bipolar outflow from the supernova explosion.

arXiv comment8 pages, 5 figures, Accepted to MNRAS

References in corpus (8)

• Subaru Prime Focus Camera -- Suprime-Cam --
• Subaru Deep Survey V. A Census of Lyman Break Galaxies at z=4 and 5 in the Subaru Deep Fields: Photometric Properties
• Fitting Pulsar Wind Tori
• Absolute Timing of the Crab Pulsar with RXTE
• Does the Crab Have a Shell?
• CHANDRA Observations of the X-ray Halo around the Crab Nebula
• Spectroscopy and 3D imaging of the Crab nebula
• The Interstellar Environment of Filled-Center Supernova Remnants III: The Crab Nebula

Cited by in corpus (12)

• The Crab Nebula and the class of Type IIn-P supernovae caused by sub-energetic electron capture explosions
• Supernova Explosions of Super-Asymptotic Giant Branch Stars: Multicolor Light Curves of Electron-Capture Supernovae
• Electron-capture supernovae exploding within their progenitor wind
• A Systematic Survey for Broadened CO Emission Toward Galactic Supernova Remnants
• A multiwavelength study on the high-energy behaviour of Fermi/LAT pulsars
• New expansion rate measurements of the Crab Nebula in radio and optical
• LOFAR 150-MHz observations of SS 433 and W 50
• Search for Thermal X-ray Features from the Crab nebula with Hitomi Soft X-ray Spectrometer
• Observational and theoretical constraints for an H$\alpha$-halo around the Crab Nebula
• A 3D Kinematic Study of the Northern Ejecta "Jet" of the Crab Nebula
• Gamma-ray Emission of the Kes 73/1E 1841-045 Region Observed with the Fermi Large Area Telescope
• The Non-Uniform Expansion of the Crab Nebula