X-ray view of pulsar wind nebulae: What we can learn with Athena?
Abstract
Observations with Chandra and XMM-Newton X-ray observatories have significantly advanced our understanding of pulsar winds and pulsar wind nebulae (PWNe). Their results provide invaluable guidance for future X-ray missions. Deep, high-resolution imaging in X-rays reveals the fine structure of pulsar winds, such as termination shocks in the equatorial wind, polar jets with moving knots, cometary-shaped bow shocks, and more complex structures seen on different scales. The spatially-resolved X-ray spectroscopy allows measurements of the particle injection spectrum in the vicinity of the termination shock and enables investigations of the spectral evolution as a function of distance from the pulsar. Multiple observations of the same PWNe have demonstrated that the PWNe can be highly variable on various timescales. I will review most recent interesting results, including deep Chandra observations of the Vela PWN and several long pulsar tails, Chandra/HST/VLA/ALMA observations of the Crab PWN, far-UV and X-ray observations the J0437--4715 bow shock, and dynamic extended feature associated with the gamma-ray binary B1259--63. I will explicitly demonstrate (using specific objects as examples) what Athena will be able to do for pulsar wind studies.
- Publication:
-
Exploring the Hot and Energetic Universe: The first scientific conference dedicated to the Athena X-ray observatory
- Pub Date:
- September 2015
- Bibcode:
- 2015eheu.conf...60K