Discovery of Extended X-Ray Emission Around the Highly Magnetic RRAT J1819-1458
Abstract
We report on the discovery of extended X-ray emission around the high magnetic field rotating radio transient J1819-1458. Using a 30 ks Chandra ACIS-S observation, we found significant evidence for extended X-ray emission with a peculiar shape: a compact region out to ~5farcs5, and more diffuse emission extending out to ~13'' from the source. The most plausible interpretation is a nebula somehow powered by the pulsar, although the small number of counts prevents a conclusive answer on the nature of this emission. RRAT J1819-1458's spin-down energy loss rate (\dot{E}_rot∼ 3× 10^{32} erg s-1) is much lower than that of other pulsars with observed spin-down-powered pulsar wind nebulae (PWNe), and implies a rather high X-ray efficiency of η _{X}≡ L_{pwn; 0.5-8 keV}/\dot{E}_rot∼ 0.2 at converting spin-down power into the PWN X-ray emission. This suggests the need of an additional source of energy rather than the spin-down power alone, such as the high magnetic energy of this source. Furthermore, this Chandra observation allowed us to refine the positional accuracy of RRAT J1819-1458 to a radius of ~0farcs3, and confirms the presence of X-ray pulsations and the ~1 keV absorption line, previously observed in the X-ray emission of this source.
- Publication:
-
The Astrophysical Journal
- Pub Date:
- September 2009
- DOI:
- 10.1088/0004-637X/703/1/L41
- arXiv:
- arXiv:0906.1394
- Bibcode:
- 2009ApJ...703L..41R
- Keywords:
-
- pulsars: individual: RRAT J1819-1458;
- stars: magnetic fields;
- X-rays: stars;
- Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
- E-Print:
- 5 pages, 3 figures