English

Faint X-ray Structure in the Crab Pulsar-Wind Nebula

Astrophysics 2016-08-30 v1

Abstract

We report on a Chandra observation of the Crab Nebula that gives the first clear view of the faint boundary of the Crab's X-ray-emitting Pulsar Wind Nebula, or PWN. There is structure in all directions. Fingers, loops, bays, and the South Pulsar Jet all indicate that either filamentary material or the magnetic field are controlling the relativistic electrons. In general, spectra soften as distance from the pulsar increases but do not change rapidly along linear features. This is particularly true for the Pulsar Jet. The termination of the Jet is abrupt; the E side is close to an [O {\small III}] optical filament which may be blocking propagation on this side. We argue that linear features have ordered magnetic fields and that the structure is determined by the synchrotron lifetime of particles diffusing perpendicular and parallel to the magnetic field. We find no significant evidence for thermal X-rays inside the filamentary envelope.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.astro-ph/0608485,
  title  = {Faint X-ray Structure in the Crab Pulsar-Wind Nebula},
  author = {F. D. Seward and W. H. Tucker and R. A. Fesen},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/0608485},
  year   = {2016}
}

Comments

accepted by ApJ, 26 pages including 12 figures

R2 v1 2026-07-22T09:11:45.324Z