Discovery of a pulsar-powered bow shock nebula in the Small Magellanic Cloud supernova remnant DEMS5

Alsaberi RZ, Maitra C, Filipović MD, Bozzetto LM, Haberl F, Maggi P, Sasaki M, Manjolović P, Velović V, Kavanagh P, Maxted NI, Urošević D, Rowell GP, Wong GF, For BQ, O'Brien AN, Galvin TJ, Staveley-Smith L, Norris RP, Jarrett T, Kothes R, Luken KJ, Hurley-Walker N, Sano H, Onić D, Dai ST, Pannuti G, Tothill NF, Crawford EJ, Yew M, Bojičić I, Dénes H, McClure-Griffiths N, Gurovich S, Fukui Y (2019)

Publication Type: Journal article

Publication year: 2019

Journal

Book Volume: 486

Pages Range: 2507-2524

Journal Issue: 2

DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stz971

Abstract

We report the discovery of a new Small Magellanic Cloud pulsar wind nebula (PWN) at the edge of the supernova remnant (SNR) DEMS5. The pulsar powered object has a cometary morphology similar to the Galactic PWN analogues PSR B1951+32 and 'the mouse'. It is travelling supersonically through the interstellar medium.We estimate the pulsar kick velocity to be in the range of 700-2000 km s-1 for an age between 28 and 10 kyr. The radio spectral index for this SNR-PWN-pulsar system is flat (-0.29 ± 0.01) consistent with other similar objects. We infer that the putative pulsar has a radio spectral index of -1.8, which is typical for Galactic pulsars. We searched for dispersion measures up to 1000 cm-3 pc but found no convincing candidates with an S/N greater than 8. We produce a polarization map for this PWN at 5500 MHz and find a mean fractional polarization of P ∼ 23 per cent. The X-ray power-law spectrum (τ ∼ 2) is indicative of non-thermal synchrotron emission as is expected from PWN-pulsar system. Finally, we detect DEMS5 in infrared (IR) bands. Our IR photometric measurements strongly indicate the presence of shocked gas that is expected for SNRs. However, it is unusual to detect such IR emission in an SNR with a supersonic bow shock PWN.We also find a low-velocity HI cloud of ∼107 km s-1 that is possibly interacting with DEMS5. SNR DEMS5 is the first confirmed detection of a pulsar-powered bow shock nebula found outside the Galaxy.

Authors with CRIS profile

Involved external institutions

University of Western Sydney Australia (AU) Curtin University Australia (AU) Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies (DIAS) Ireland (IE) University of Belgrade / Универзитет у Београду Serbia (RS) Nagoya University / 名古屋大学 Japan (JP) Universidad Nacional de Córdoba Argentina (AR) Australian National University (ANU) Australia (AU) Morehead State University United States (USA) (US) Australia Telescope National Facility (ATNF) Australia (AU) National Research Council / Conseil national de recherches Canada Canada (CA) University of Cape Town (UCT) South Africa (ZA) University of Western Australia (UWA) Australia (AU) University of Adelaide Australia (AU) Université de Strasbourg (UDS) France (FR) Max-Planck-Institut für extraterrestrische Physik (MPE) / Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics Germany (DE) Astron Netherlands (NL)

How to cite

APA:

Alsaberi, R.Z., Maitra, C., Filipović, M.D., Bozzetto, L.M., Haberl, F., Maggi, P.,... Fukui, Y. (2019). Discovery of a pulsar-powered bow shock nebula in the Small Magellanic Cloud supernova remnant DEMS5. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 486(2), 2507-2524. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stz971

MLA:

Alsaberi, Rami Z.E., et al. "Discovery of a pulsar-powered bow shock nebula in the Small Magellanic Cloud supernova remnant DEMS5." Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 486.2 (2019): 2507-2524.

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