A Broadband X-Ray Study of the Rabbit Pulsar Wind Nebula Powered by PSR J1418-6058

• Published in: The Astrophysical journal Vol. 945; no. 1; pp. 66 - 82
• Main Authors: Park, Jaegeun, Kim, Chanho, Woo, Jooyun, An, Hongjun, Mori, Kaya, Reynolds, Stephen P., Safi-Harb, Samar
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Philadelphia The American Astronomical Society 01.03.2023; IOP Publishing
• Subjects: Astronomy data analysis; Astrophysics; Broadband; Elastic scattering; Emission; Field strength; Gamma-ray sources; High-energy astrophysics; Magnetic fields; Nebulae; Physical properties; Pulsar wind nebulae; Pulsar winds; Pulsars; Rabbits; Radiation; Relativistic particles; Rotation-powered pulsars; Spectral energy distribution; Stellar winds; Synchrotron radiation; Synchrotrons; Wind; X ray spectra; X-ray astronomy; X-ray emissions; X-rays; XMM (spacecraft)
• ISSN: 0004-637X; 1538-4357
• DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/acba0e

Abstract We report on broadband X-ray properties of the Rabbit pulsar wind nebula (PWN) associated with the pulsar PSR J1418−6058 using archival Chandra and XMM-Newton data, as well as a new NuSTAR observation. NuSTAR data above 10 keV allowed us to detect the 110 ms spin period of the pulsar, characterize its hard X-ray pulse profile, and resolve hard X-ray emission from the PWN after removing contamination from the pulsar and other overlapping point sources. The extended PWN was detected up to ∼20 keV and is described well by a power-law model with a photon index Γ ≈ 2. The PWN shape does not vary significantly with energy, and its X-ray spectrum shows no clear evidence of softening away from the pulsar. We modeled the spatial profile of X-ray spectra and broadband spectral energy distribution in the radio to TeV band to infer the physical properties of the PWN. We found that a model with low magnetic field strength ( B ∼ 10 μ G) and efficient diffusion ( D ∼ 10 27 cm 2 s −1 ) fits the PWN data well. The extended hard X-ray and TeV emission, associated respectively with synchrotron radiation and inverse Compton scattering by relativistic electrons, suggest that particles are accelerated to very high energies (≳500 TeV), indicating that the Rabbit PWN is a Galactic PeVatron candidate.