Geminga's tails: A pulsar bow shock probing the interstellar medium

被引：90

作者：

Caraveo, PA

Bignami, GF

DeLuca, A

Mereghetti, S

Pellizzoni, A

Mignani, R

Tur, A

Becker, W

机构：

[1] CNR, Ist Astrofis Spaziale & Fis Cosm, I-20133 Milan, Italy

[2] Univ Toulouse 3, CNRS, Ctr Etud Spatiale Rayonnements, F-31062 Toulouse, France

[3] Univ Pavia, Dipartimento Fis Nucl & Teor, I-27100 Pavia, Italy

[4] European So Observ, D-85748 Garching, Germany

[5] Max Planck Inst Extraterr Phys, D-85748 Garching, Germany

来源：

SCIENCE | 2003年 / 301卷 / 5638期

关键词：

D O I：

10.1126/science.1086973

中图分类号：

O [数理科学和化学]; P [天文学、地球科学]; Q [生物科学]; N [自然科学总论];

学科分类号：

07 ; 0710 ; 09 ;

摘要：

We report the X-ray Multimirror Mission-Newton European Photon Imaging Camera observation of two elongated parallel x-ray tails trailing the pulsar Geminga. They are aligned with the object's supersonic motion, extend for similar to2', and have a nonthermal spectrum produced by electron-synchrotron emission in the bow shock between the pulsar wind and the surrounding medium. Electron lifetime against synchrotron cooling matches the source transit time over the x-ray features' length. Such an x-ray detection of a pulsar bow shock (with no Halpha emission) allows us to gauge the pulsar electron injection energy and the shock magnetic field while constraining the angle of Geminga's motion and the local matter density.

引用

页码：1345 / 1347

页数：3

共 24 条

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