Related papers: Of Winds and Waves
Pulsar Wind Nebulae are highly intriguing astrophysical objects in many respects. They are the brightest and closest class of relativistic sources, and hence the ultimate laboratory for the physics of relativistic plasmas: several processes…
Pulsar wind nebulae are fascinating systems, and archetypal sources for high-energy astrophysics in general. Due to their vicinity, brightness, to the fact that they shine at multi-wavelengths, and especially to their long-living emission…
Pulsar winds shocked in the ambient medium produce spectacular nebulae observable from the radio through gamma-rays. The shape and the spectrum of a pulsar wind nebula (PWN) depend on the angular distribution, magnetization and energy…
Strong waves can mediate a shock transition between a pulsar wind and its surroundings, playing the role of an extended precursor, in which the energy is effectively transferred from fields to non-thermal particles. The damping of such…
Fast magnetosonic waves in a magnetically-dominated plasma are investigated. In the pulsar wind, these waves may transport a significant fraction of the energy flux. It is shown that the nonlinear steepening and subsequent formation of…
We present first results of three dimensional relativistic magnetohydrodynamical simulations of Pulsar Wind Nebulae. They show that the kink instability and magnetic dissipation inside these nebulae may be the key processes allowing to…
The synchrotron-emitting nebulae formed by energetic winds from young pulsars provide information on a wide range phenomena that contribute to their structure. High resolution X-ray observations reveal jets and toroidal structures in many…
Successful phenomenological models of pulsar wind nebulae assume efficient dissipation of the Poynting flux of the magnetized electron-positron wind as well as efficient acceleration of the pairs in the vicinity of the termination shock,…
In this brief review, I discuss recent developments in the study of pulsar-powered nebulae ("plerions"). The large volume of data which has been acquired in recent years reveals a diverse range of observational properties, demonstrating how…
We discuss the observational properties of pulsar wind nebulae (PWNe) linking them to the injected (at the termination shock) electron spectral energy distribution and parameters of pulsar magnetospheres. In particular, we (1) present…
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…
After discussion of observational constraints on the nature of the MHD wind coupling between the Crab Pulsar and the Crab Nebula, the theory of transverse relativistic shock structure is reviewed and applied to the interpretation of the…
A significant fraction of massive stars move at speed through the interstellar medium of galaxies. After their death as core collapse supernovae, a possible final evolutionary state is that of a fast rotating magnetised neutron star,…
Pulsars are known to be efficient accelerators that produce copious amounts of relativistic particles and inject them into the Galactic medium. The radiation emitted by such a pulsar wind can be seen from radio through gamma-rays as a…
Winds are ubiquitous in galaxies and often feature bubble structures. These wind bubbles are characterized by an external forward shock expanding in the surrounding medium and a wind termination shock separating the cool and fast wind from…
A spherically symmetric model is presented for the interaction of a pulsar wind with the associated supernova remnant. This results in a pulsar wind nebula whose evolution is coupled to the evolution of the surrounding supernova remnant.…
Pulsars with high spin-down power produce relativistic winds radiating a fraction of the power in the range from radio to gamma-rays in the pulsar wind nebulae (PWNe). The rest of the power is dissipated in the interactions of the PWNe with…
Two-dimensional, relativistic, MHD simulations of pulsar-wind powered nebulae provide strong constraints on the properties of the winds themselves. In particular, they confirm that Poynting flux must be converted into particle energy close…
Young pulsars spin incredibly quickly, but are also slowing down at a very rapid rate. This process carries away enormous amounts of energy from the star in the form of a relativistic wind. Through the high resolution now offered by the…
Young supernova remnants that contain pulsar wind nebulae provide diagnostics for both the inner part of the supernova and the interaction with the surrounding medium, providing an opportunity to relate these objects to supernova types.…