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Register a new userThe geometric distance and binary orbit of PSR B1259-63
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Authors
James C. A. Miller-Jones
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The pulsar/massive star binary system PSR B1259-63 / LS 2883 is one of the best-studied gamma-ray binaries, a class of systems whose bright gamma-ray flaring can provide important insights into high-energy physics. Using the Australian Long Baseline Array we have conducted very long baseline interferometric observations of PSR B1259-63 over 4.4 years, fully sampling the 3.4-year orbital period. From our measured parallax of $0.38pm0.05$ mas we use a Bayesian approach to infer a distance of $2.6^{+0.4}_{-0.3}$ kpc. We find that the binary orbit is viewed at an angle of $154pm3$ degrees to the line of sight, implying that the pulsar moves clockwise around its orbit as viewed on the sky. Taking our findings together with previous results from pulsar timing observations, all seven orbital elements for the system are now fully determined. We use our measurement of the inclination angle to constrain the mass of the stellar companion to lie in the range 15-31$M_{odot}$. Our measured distance and proper motion are consistent with the system having originated in the Cen OB1 association and receiving a modest natal kick, causing it to have moved $sim$8 pc from its birthplace over the past $sim3times10^5$ years. The orientation of the orbit on the plane of the sky matches the direction of motion of the X-ray synchrotron-emitting knot observed by the Chandra X-ray Observatory to be moving away from the system.
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PSR B1259-63 is a gamma-ray binary system composed of a high spindown pulsar and a massive star. Non-thermal emission up to TeV energies is observed near periastron passage, attributed to emission from high energy e+e- pairs accelerated at the shock with the circumstellar material from the companion star, resulting in a small-scale pulsar wind nebula. Weak gamma-ray emission was detected by the Fermi/LAT at the last periastron passage, unexpectedly followed 30 days later by a strong flare, limited to the GeV band, during which the luminosity nearly reached the spindown power of the pulsar. The origin of this GeV flare remains mysterious. We investigate whether the flare could have been caused by pairs, located in the vicinity of the pulsar, up-scattering X-ray photons from the surrounding pulsar wind nebula rather than UV stellar photons, as usually assumed. Such a model is suggested by the geometry of the interaction region at the time of the flare. We compute the gamma-ray lightcurve for this scenario, based on a simplified description of the interaction region, and compare it to the observations. The GeV lightcurve peaks well after periastron with this geometry. The pairs are inferred to have a Lorentz factor ~500. They also produce an MeV flare with a luminosity ~1e34 erg/s prior to periastron passage. A significant drawback is the very high energy density of target photons required for efficient GeV emission. We propose to associate the GeV-emitting pairs with the Maxwellian expected at shock locations corresponding to high pulsar latitudes, while the rest of the non-thermal emission arises from pairs accelerated in the equatorial region of the pulsar wind termination shock.
PSR B1259-63 is a middle-aged radio pulsar (P=48 ms, tau=330 kyr, Edot=8.3*10^{35} erg/s) in an eccentric binary (P_orb =3.4 yr, e=0.87) with a high-mass Be companion, SS 2883. We observed the binary near apastron with the Chandra ACIS detector on 2009 May 14 for 28 ks. In addition to the previously studied pointlike source at the pulsars position, we detected extended emission on the south-southwest side of this source. The pointlike source spectrum can be described by the absorbed power-law model with the hydrogen column density N_H = (2.5+/-0.6)*10^{21} cm^{-2}, photon index Gamma = 1.6+/-0.1, and luminosity L_{0.5-8 keV} = 1.3*10^{33} d_3^2 erg/s, where d_3 is the distance scaled to 3 kpc. This emission likely includes an unresolved part of the pulsar wind nebula (PWN) created by the colliding winds from the pulsar and the Be companion, and a contribution from the pulsar magnetosphere. The extended emission apparently consists of two components. The highly significant compact component looks like a southward extension of the pointlike source image, seen up to about 4 arcsec from the pulsar position. Its spectrum has about the same slope as the pointlike source spectrum, while its luminosity is a factor of 10 lower. We also detected an elongated feature extended ~15 arcsec southwest of the pulsar, but significance of this detection is marginal. We tentatively interpret the resolved compact PWN component as a shocked pulsar wind blown out of the binary by the wind of the Be component, while the elongated component could be a pulsar jet.
Observing the famous high-mass, eccentric X-ray and gamma-ray binary PSR B1259-63/LS 2883 with Chandra, we detected X-ray emitting clumps moving from the binary with speeds of about 0.1 of the speed of light, possibly with acceleration. The clumps are being ejected at least once per binary period, 3.4 years, presumably around binary periastrons. The power-law spectra of the clumps can be interpreted as synchrotron emission of relativistic electrons. Here we report the results of 8 observations of the clumps in 2011-2017 (two binary cycles) and discuss possible interpretations of this unique phenomenon.
We examine changes of the $gamma$-ray intensity observed from the direction of the binary system PSR B1259-63/LS 2883 during campaigns around its three periastron passages. A simple and straightforward method is applied to the published data obtained with the Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Technique. Regardless of many issues of the detection process, the method works only with numbers of very high energetic photons registered in the specified regions. Within the realm of this scheme, we recognized changes attributable to the variations of the intrinsic source activity at high levels of significance.
PSR B1259-63/LS 2883 is a very high energy (VHE; $E > 100$ GeV) {gamma}-ray emitting binary consisting of a 48 ms pulsar orbiting around a Be star with a period of $sim3.4$ years. The Be star features a circumstellar disk which is inclined with respect to the orbit in such a way that the pulsar crosses it twice every orbit. The circumstellar disk provides an additional field of target photons which may contribute to inverse Compton scattering and {gamma}{gamma}-absorption, leaving a characteristic imprint in the observed spectrum of the high energy emission. At GeV energies, the source was detected for the first time during the previous periastron passage which took place on December 15, 2010. The Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) reported a spectacular and unexpected {gamma}-ray flare occurring around 30 days after periastron and lasting for about 7 weeks. In this paper, we study the signatures of Compton-supported, VHE {gamma}-ray induced pair cascades in the circumstellar disc of the Be star and their possible contribution to the GeV flux. We show that cascade emission generated in the disk cannot be responsible for the GeV flare, but it might explain the GeV emission observed close to periastron. We also show that the {gamma}{gamma}-absorption in the disk might explain the observed TeV light curve.
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