The Variable Pulsar Wind Nebula of PSR J1809-1917

Abstract

PSR J1809-1917 is a young ($\tau =51$ kyr) energetic ($\dot{E}=1.8\times 10^{36}$ erg s${}^{-1}$) radio pulsar powering a pulsar wind nebula (PWN). We report on the results of three Chandra X-ray Observatory observations which show that the PWN consists of a small ($\sim 20^{\prime \prime }$) bright compact nebula (CN) and faint extended emission seen up to $2^{\prime }$ from the pulsar. The CN is elongated in the northeast-southwest direction and exhibits morphological and flux variability on a timescale of a few months. We also find evidence of small arcsecond-scale jets extending from the pulsar along the same direction, and exhibiting a hard power-law (PL) spectrum with photon index ${\Gamma }_{\mathrm{jet}}=1.2\pm 0.1$. The more extended emission and CN share the same symmetry axis, which is also aligned with the direction toward the TeV $\gamma$-ray source HESS J1809--193, supporting their association. The spectrum of the extended nebula (EN) fits an absorbed PL with about the same slope as that of the CN, ${\Gamma }_{\mathrm{CN}}\approx {\Gamma }_{\mathrm{EN}}=1.55\pm 0.09$; no spectral changes across the EN's 2 pc extent are seen. The total PWN 0.5-8 keV luminosity is $L_{\mathrm{PWN}}\approx 9\times 10^{32}$ erg s${}^{-1}$, about half of which is due to the EN.

10 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ

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Cited by in corpus (7)

• HESS J1809$-$193: a halo of escaped electrons around a pulsar wind nebula?
• Chandra Monitoring of the J1809-1917 Pulsar Wind Nebula and Its Field
• Revisiting the Chandra Observation on the Region of PSR J1809-1917: Indication of an X-ray Halo and Implication for the Origin of HESS J1809-193
• HESS J1809-193: Gamma-Ray Emission by Cosmic Rays from Past Explosion
• XMM-Newton and Chandra observations of the candidate Fermi-LAT pulsar 4FGL J1015.5-6030
• Gamma-ray flares from pulsar wind nebulae in the Large Magellanic Cloud
• Self-confinement of relativistic pair beams in magnetized interstellar plasmas: the case of pulsar X-ray filaments