The Long Filament of PSR J2030+4415

Abstract

New X-ray and optical observations shed light on the remarkable X-ray filament of the Gamma-ray pulsar PSR~J2030+4415. Images of the associated H$\alpha$ bow shock's evolution over the past decade compared with its velocity structure provide an improved kinematic distance of $\sim$0.5kpc. These velocities also imply that the pulsar spin axis lies $\sim 15^{\circ }$ from the proper motion axis which is close to the plane of the sky. The multi-bubble shock structure indicates that the bow shock stand-off was compressed to a small value $\sim 20-30$y ago when the pulsar broke through the bow shock to its present bubble. This compression allowed multi-TeV pulsar $e^{\pm }$ to escape to the external ISM, lighting up an external magnetic field structure as the `filament'. The narrow filament indicates excellent initial confinement and the full $15^{\prime }$ ($2.2$~pc=7~lt-y) projected length of the filament indicates rapid $e^{\pm }$ propagation to its end. Spectral variation along the filament suggests that the injected particle energy evolved during the break-through event.

9 pages, 6 figures

References in corpus (5)

• On the X-ray feature associated with the Guitar Nebula
• X-ray emission properties of the old pulsar PSR B2224+65
• On the origin of jet-like features in bow shock pulsar wind nebulae
• Deep Chandra Observations of the Pulsar Wind Nebula Created by PSR B0355+54
• PSR J2030+4415's Remarkable Bow Shock, PWN and Filament

Cited by in corpus (1)

• A Quarter Century of Guitar Nebula/Filament Evolution