Account
First Name | Stephen |
Last Name | Ng |
Institution | The University of Hong Kong |
Country | Hong Kong |
1st Abstract
Title (1st Abstract) | Discovery of a Radio Bubble Trailing PSR J1015-5719 |
First Author | C.-Y. Ng |
Affiliation | The University of Hong Kong |
Presentation options | |
Session | 3. Pulsar winds nebulae (including Crab flares) |
1st Abstract | PSR J1015-5719 is a young and energetic pulsar with a characteristic age of 39kyr and a spin down luminosity of 8.3e35erg/s. We report on radio imaging observations of the field made with the Molonglo Observatory Synthesis Telescope and the Australia Telescope Compact Array at 36, 16, 6, and 3 cm. We discovered a highly linearly polarized radio nebula associated with the pulsar. It shows a faint triangular head region centered on the pulsar, followed by a bubble with 40″ diameter and a faint tail of ~1′ further south. At the pulsar distance of ~5kpc, the physical size of the bubble seems too small for it to be the parent supernova remnant. We believe that it is more likely to be a pulsar wind nebula (PWN), based on the flat radio spectral index of ~0.15 and high degree of polarization we found. Similar bubbles have been found in other PWNe such as the Guitar Nebula, and it was attributed to instability in the flow. We compare the PWN of J1015 with these cases and discuss the physical environment in the system. The Australia Telescope Compact Array is part of the Australia Telescope National Facility which is funded by the Commonwealth of Australia for operation as a National Facility managed by CSIRO. MOST is operated by The University of Sydney with support from the Australian Research Council and the Science Foundation for Physics within the University of Sydney. This work is supported by an ECS grant under HKU 709713P. |