Modeling the effect of small-scale magnetic turbulence on the X-ray properties of Pulsar Wind Nebulae

Abstract

Pulsar Wind Nebulae (PWNe) constitute an ideal astrophysical environment to test our current understanding of relativistic plasma processes. It is well known that magnetic fields play a crucial role in their dynamics and emission properties. At present, one of the main issues concerns the level of magnetic turbulence present in these systems, which in the absence of space resolved X-ray polarization measures cannot be directly constrained. In this work we investigate, for the first time using simulated synchrotron maps, the effect of a small scale fluctuating component of the magnetic field on the emission properties in X-ray. We illustrate how to include the effects of a turbulent component in standard emission models for PWNe, and which consequences are expected in terms of net emissivity and depolarization, showing that the X-ray surface brightness maps can provide already some rough constraints. We then apply our analysis to the Crab and Vela nebulae and, by comparing our model with Chandra and Vela data, we found that the typical energies in the turbulent component of the magnetic field are about 1.5 to 3 times the one in the ordered field.

9 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS

References in corpus (5)

• Simulated synchrotron emission from Pulsar Wind Nebulae
• Constraints on particle acceleration sites in the Crab Nebula from relativistic MHD simulations
• Multi-D magnetohydrodynamic modelling of pulsar wind nebulae: recent progress and open questions
• HST optical polarimetry of the Vela pulsar & nebula
• Polarization in Pulsar Wind Nebulae

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• Phenomenological modelling of the Crab Nebula's broad band energy spectrum and its apparent extension
• Confinement of the Crab Nebula with tangled magnetic field by its supernova remnant
• Modeling Radio Circular Polarization in the Crab Nebula
• Spatially resolved polarization variation of the Crab Nebula
• Future X-ray Polarimetry of Relativistic Accelerators: PWNe and SNRs
• X-Ray Polarization Study of Pulsar Wind Nebulae with eXTP: Simulation Results and Scientific Prospects
• Radio Nebulæ from Hyper-Accreting X-ray Binaries as Common Envelope Precursors and Persistent Counterparts of Fast Radio Bursts