Towards observing reverberating and superefficient pulsar wind nebulae

Abstract

In a recent work, we numerically studied the radiative properties of the reverberation phase of pulsar wind nebulae (PWNe), i.e., when the reverse shock created by the supernova explosion travels back towards the pulsar, compressing the wind bubble. We focused on several well-characterized PWNe and used them as examples for introducing the concept of superefficiency. The latter is a period of the PWN evolution, happening within reverberation, where the luminosity in a given band exceeds the spin-down power at the time. Here, we explore a broad range of PWN models to study their reverberation and superefficiency phases in a systematic way. Armed with these models we consider two aspects: On the one hand, we analyze via Monte Carlo simulations how many Galactic PWNe are expected to be reverberating or in a superefficiency stage at any given time, providing the first such estimations. On the other hand, we focus on searching for observational signatures of such periods. We analyze archival observations and check for the existence of possible candidates for superefficient PWNe. We also provide predictions for the future evolution of the magnetar nebula J1834.9-0846 (which we consider to be starting its reverberation period) along the next 50 years. Using our simulations as input we study how sensitive current and future X-ray satellites (like eXTP or Athena) will be to observe such evolution, concluding that they will be able to track it in detail.

Accepted for publication in MNRAS

References in corpus (11)

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• The first XMM-Newton slew survey catalogue: XMMSL1
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• VLA and XMM-Newton observations of the SNR W41/TeV Gamma-ray source HESS J1834-087
• Detailed Investigation of the Gamma-Ray Emission in the Vicinity of SNR W28 with FERMI-LAT
• Gamma-ray upper limits on magnetars with 6 years of Fermi-LAT observations
• Probing the gamma-ray emission from HESS J1834-087 using H.E.S.S. and Fermi LAT observations
• A rotationally-powered magnetar nebula around Swift J1834.9-0846

Cited by in corpus (7)

• Reverberation of pulsar wind nebulae (I): Impact of the medium properties and other parameters upon the extent of the compression
• Modeling the γ-ray Pulsar Wind Nebulae population in our Galaxy
• Reverberation of pulsar wind nebulae (II): Anatomy of the "thin-shell'' evolution
• From young to old: the evolutionary path of Pulsar Wind Nebulae
• Reverberation of pulsar wind nebulae (III): Modelling of the plasma interface empowering a long term radiative evolution
• Exploiting Morphological Data from Pulsar Wind Nebulae via a Spatio-Temporal Leptonic Transport Code
• Introducing the HD+B model for pulsar wind nebulae: a hybrid hydrodynamics/radiative approach