X-Ray and Gamma-Ray Emission from the PSR 1259-63 / Be Star System

Abstract

PSR 1259-63 is a radio pulsar orbiting a Be star in a highly eccentric orbit. Soft and hard X-rays are observed from this binary system. We apply the shock powered emission model to this system. The collision of the pulsar and Be star winds forms a shock, which accelerates electrons and positrons to the relativistic energies. We derive the energy distribution of relativistic electrons and positrons as a function of the distance from the shock in the pulsar nebula. We calculate the X-rays and $\gamma$-rays emitted from the relativistic electrons and positrons in the nebula at various orbital phases, taking into account the Klein-Nishina effect fully. The shock powered emission model can explain the observed X-ray properties approximately. We obtain from the comparison with observations that a fraction of $\sim 0.1$ of the pulsar spin-down luminosity should be transformed into the relativistic electrons and positrons. We find that the magnetization parameter of the pulsar wind, the ratio of the Poynting flux to the kinetic energy flux, is $\sim 0.1$ immediately upstream of the termination shock of the pulsar wind, and may decrease with distance from the pulsar. We predict the flux of 10 MeV - 100 GeV $\gamma$-rays which may be nearly equal to the detection threshold in the future projects.

18 pages, 9 figures, accepted for publication in PASJ

References in corpus (1)

• Nonthermal Electrons at High Mach Number Shocks: Electron Shock Surfing Acceleration

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• A Search for TeV Gamma-ray Emission from the PSR B1259-63/SS2883 Binary System with the CANGAROO-II 10-m Telescope
• Suzaku Observations of PSR B1259-63: A New Manifestation of Relativistic Pulsar Wind
• Gamma-rays from cascades in close massive binaries containing energetic pulsars
• Modelling the interaction between relativistic and non-relativistic winds in binary pulsar systems: strong magnetization of the pulsar wind
• Modelling the multi-wavelength emissions from PSR B1259-63/LS 2883: the effects of the stellar disc on shock radiations
• Spectral evolution of non-thermal electron distributions in intense radiation fields