NuSTAR and Fermi LAT observation of the Vela Pulsar and its Nebula
Abstract
We present the analysis of 200-ks NuSTAR observation of the Vela Pulsar and its PWN accompanied by the analysis of 14 years of Fermi-LAT data. For the pulsar, we focus on phase-resolved spectral analysis. In X-rays we find that the spectrum of Peak 1, modeled as a power-law, is significantly harder than that of Peak 2 (in a qualitative agreement with the earlier RXTE results). However, the new values of photon indices are noticeably larger for both peaks compared to the earlier RXTE analysis. The Fermi-LAT spectra, fitted with by power-law with super-exponential cutoff, show correlation between the spectral slope and the light-curve structure. Despite 14 years of LAT data the pulsar's gamma-ray emission is very faint in the "off-pulse" phase interval enabling accurate investigation of the PWN spectrum and variability. We also use the off-pulse interval to study the hard X-ray spectrum of the PWN. We discuss our results in the context of pulsar and PWN emission models.
- Publication:
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AAS/High Energy Astrophysics Division
- Pub Date:
- September 2023
- Bibcode:
- 2023HEAD...2016120L