The Mouse Pulsar Wind Nebula

Abstract

The young energetic pulsar J1747-2958 (τ = 26 kyr,Ė = 2.5 × 10 36 erg s −1 ) powers the Mouse pulsar wind nebula (PWN), famous for its spectacular tail spanning 45 in X-rays and 12 in radio (d ∼ 5 kpc). We present the results of Chandra observations of the PWN and the analysis of archival lower-frequency data. The Chandra HRC image reveals a point-like source at the pulsar position, ≈1 behind the bow shock apex of the PWN. The flattened appearance of the compact nebula is consistent with an equatorial outflow deformed by the ram pressure, implying that the angle between the pulsar's spin axis and line of sight is ∼ 70 • (in agreement with the radio and γ-ray pulse profiles). The spatially-resolved spectroscopy with Chandra ACIS shows that the power-law (PL) spectrum steepens from Γ = 1.65 ± 0.02 to 3.0 ± 0.1 over the 45 extent of the X-ray tail. However, the tail's X-ray spectrum integrated over its 45 length fits a single absorbed PL with Γ = 2.09 ± 0.03. We also found the Mouse PWN in 150 MHz GMRT data, and a possible counterpart in 24 µm Spitzer data. The multiwavelength data suggest that, at low frequencies, the spectrum of the X-ray-emitting tail region can be described by a broken PL with at least one turnover between radio and X-rays. This is consistent with synchrotron cooling of electrons injected at the termination shock (with an SED slope of 2.2) in an equipartition magnetic field B ∼ 200 µG and a bulk flow speed v ∼ 4000 km s −1 .

Theoretically Motivated Search and Detection of Non-thermal Pulsations from PSRs J1747-2958, J2021+3651, and J1826-1256

“…This is possibly due to different extraction regions, and/or a different number of events considered in the timing analysis. However, we note that the pulse fraction derived in our analysis is consistent with the upper limit calculated by Klingler et al (2018)…”

“…The HRC data were folded at the detected period and the pulse profile is also shown in Figure 1, yielding a pulse fraction of 20.9%±4.7%. Klingler et al (2018) carried out a search of X-ray pulsations in the same Chandra/HRC data, but reported no detection. This is possibly due to different extraction regions, and/or a different number of events considered in the timing analysis.…”

Discovery of a pulsar-powered bow shock nebula in the Small Magellanic Cloud supernova remnant DEM S5

“…Morphologically, this would qualify the DEM S5 system (pulsar and PWN) as a 'rifle bullet' type (Barkov et al 2019) where the spin and velocity are aligned. The most likely Galactic bow shock PWN analog would be PSR B1951+32 in SNR CTB 80 (see Safi-Harb et al 1995;Moon et al 2004) and 'mouse' PWN (J1747-2956) (Gaensler et al 2004;Klingler et al 2018) where a similar morphology is detected. However, according to Kargaltsev et al (2017) PSR B1951+32 doesn't move supersonically.…”

The Atacama Cosmology Telescope: Microwave Intensity and Polarization Maps of the Galactic Center

“…Distances to PSR J1747-2958 and the Mouse are uncertain, but they are not at the Galactic center: observations of neutral hydrogen absorption set the maximum distance to G359.23-0.82 at ∼ 5.5 kpc (Uchida et al 1992). Gaensler et al (2004) argue for a distance of ∼ 5 kpc, a value now commonly adopted (e.g., Klingler et al 2018). At 5 kpc, the transverse velocity of PSR J1747-2958 is 306 ± 43 km s −1 (Hales et al 2009).…”