Vela pulsar wind nebula X-rays are polarized to near the synchrotron limit

Fei Xie , Alessandro Di Marco , Fabio La Monaca , Kuan Liu , Fabio Muleri , Niccolò Bucciantini , Roger W. Romani , Enrico Costa , John Rankin , Paolo Soffitta , Matteo Bachetti , Niccolò Di Lalla , Sergio Fabiani , Riccardo Ferrazzoli , Shuichi Gunji , Luca Latronico , Michela Negro , Nicola Omodei , Maura Pilia , Alessio Trois , Eri Watanabe , Iván Agudo , Lucio A. Antonelli , Luca Baldini , Wayne H. Baumgartner , Ronaldo Bellazzini , Stefano Bianchi , Stephen D. Bongiorno , Raffaella Bonino , Alessandro Brez , Fiamma Capitanio , Simone Castellano , Elisabetta Cavazzuti , Stefano Ciprini , Alessandra de Rosa , Ettore del Monte , Laura Di Gesu , Immacolata Donnarumma , Victor Doroshenko , Michal Dovčiak , Steven R. Ehlert , Teruaki Enoto , Yuri Evangelista , Javier A. Garcia , Kiyoshi Hayashida , Jeremy Heyl , Wataru Iwakiri , Svetlana G. Jorstad , Vladimir Karas , Takao Kitaguchi , Jeffery J. Kolodziejczak , Henric Krawczynski , Ioannis Liodakis , Simone Maldera , Alberto Manfreda , Frédéric Marin (1) , Andrea Marinucci , Alan P. Marscher , Herman L. Marshall , Francesco Massaro , Giorgio Matt , Ikuyuki Mitsuishi , Tsunefumi Mizuno , C. -Y. Ng , Stephen L. O'Dell , Chiara Oppedisano , Alessandro Papitto , George G. Pavlov , Abel L. Peirson , Matteo Perri , Melissa Pesce-Rollins , Pierre-Olivier Petrucci (2) , Andrea Possenti , Juri Poutanen , Simonetta Puccetti , Brian D. Ramsey , Ajay Ratheesh , Carmelo Sgró , Patrick Slane , Gloria Spandre , Toru Tamagawa , Fabrizio Tavecchio , Roberto Taverna , Yuzuru Tawara , Allyn F. Tennant , Nicolas E. Thomas , Francesco Tombesi , Sergey S. Tsygankov , Roberto Turolla , Jacco Vink , Martin C. Weisskopf , Kinwah Wu , Silvia Zane

1 ObAS - Observatoire astronomique de Strasbourg
2 IPAG - Institut de Planétologie et d'Astrophysique de Grenoble

Pulsar wind nebulae are formed when outflows of relativistic electrons and positrons hit the surrounding supernova remnant or interstellar medium at a shock front. The Vela pulsar wind nebula is powered by a young pulsar (B0833-45, aged 11,000 years)¹ and located inside an extended structure called Vela X, which is itself inside the supernova remnant². Previous X-ray observations revealed two prominent arcs that are bisected by a jet and counter jet^3,4. Radio maps have shown high linear polarization of 60% in the outer regions of the nebula⁵. Here we report an X-ray observation of the inner part of the nebula, where polarization can exceed 60% at the leading edge—approaching the theoretical limit of what can be produced by synchrotron emission. We infer that, in contrast with the case of the supernova remnant, the electrons in the pulsar wind nebula are accelerated with little or no turbulence in a highly uniform magnetic field.

Domains: Sciences of the Universe [physics]

Fei Xie, Alessandro Di Marco, Fabio La Monaca, Kuan Liu, Fabio Muleri, et al.. Vela pulsar wind nebula X-rays are polarized to near the synchrotron limit. Nature, 2022, 612, pp.658-660. ⟨10.1038/s41586-022-05476-5⟩. ⟨insu-03924543⟩