No Arabic abstract
We present Chandra X-ray Observatory imaging observations of the young Galactic supernova remnant G11.2-0.3. The image shows that the previously known young 65-ms X-ray pulsar is at position (J2000) RA 18h 11m 29.22s, DEC -19o 25 27.6, with 1 sigma error radius 0.6. This is within 8 of the geometric center of the shell. This provides strong confirming evidence that the system is younger, by a factor of ~12, than the characteristic age of the pulsar. The age discrepancy suggests that pulsar characteristic ages can be poor age estimators for young pulsars. Assuming conventional spin down with constant magnetic field and braking index, the most likely explanation for the age discrepancy in G11.2-0.3 is that the pulsar was born with a spin period of ~62 ms. The Chandra image also reveals, for the first time, the morphology of the pulsar wind nebula. The elongated hard-X-ray structure can be interpreted as either a jet or a Crab-like torus seen edge on. This adds to the growing list of highly aspherical pulsar wind nebulae and argues that such structures are common around young pulsars.
We present in this paper the hard X-ray view of the pulsar wind nebula in G11.2-0.3 and its central pulsar PSR J1811-1925 as seen by NuSTAR. We complement the data with Chandra for a more complete picture and confirm the existence of a hard, power-law component in the shell with photon index Gamma = 2.1 +/- 0.1, which we attribute to synchrotron emission. Our imaging observations of the shell show a slightly smaller radius at higher energies, consistent with Chandra results, and we find shrinkage as a function of increased energy along the jet direction, indicating that the electron outflow in the PWN may be simpler than that seen in other young PWNe. Combining NuSTAR with Integral, we find that the pulsar spectrum can be fit by a power-law with Gamma=1.32 +/- 0.07 up to 300 keV without evidence of curvature.
We present high-resolution radio and X-ray studies of the composite supernova remnant G11.2-0.3. Using archival VLA data, we perform radio spectral tomography to measure for the first time the spectrum of the shell and plerion separately. We compare the radio morphology of each component to that observed in the hard and soft Chandra X-ray images. We measure the X-ray spectra of the shell and the emission in the interior and discuss the hypothesis that soft X-ray emission interior to the shell is the result of the expanding pulsar wind shocking with the supernova ejecta. We also see evidence for spatial variability in the hard X-ray emission near the pulsar, which we discuss in terms of ion mediated relativistic shocks.
We present results of a 400-ks Chandra observation of the young shell supernova remnant (SNR) G11.2-0.3, containing a pulsar and pulsar-wind nebula (PWN). We measure a mean expansion rate for the shell since 2000 of 0.0277+/-0.0018% per yr, implying an age between 1400 and 2400 yr, and making G11.2-0.3 one of the youngest core-collapse SNRs in the Galaxy. However, we find very high absorption ($A_V sim 16^m pm 2^m$), confirming near-IR determinations and ruling out a claimed association with the possible historical SN of 386 CE. The PWN shows strong jets and a faint torus within a larger, more diffuse region of radio emission and nonthermal X-rays. Central soft thermal X-ray emission is anticorrelated with the PWN; that, and more detailed morphological evidence, indicates that the reverse shock has already reheated all ejecta and compressed the PWN. The pulsar characteristic energy-loss timescale is well in excess of the remnant age, and we suggest that the bright jets have been produced since the recompression. The relatively pronounced shell and diffuse hard X-ray emission in the interior, enhanced at the inner edge of the shell, indicate that the immediate circumstellar medium into which G11.2-0.3 is expanding was quite anisotropic. We propose a possible origin for G11.2-0.3 in a stripped-envelope progenitor that had lost almost all its envelope mass, in an anisotropic wind or due to binary interaction, leaving a compact core whose fast winds swept previously lost mass into a dense irregular shell, and which exploded as a Type cIIb or Ibc supernova.
We present a high-resolution radio study of the supernova remnant (SNR) G11.2-0.3 using archival VLA data. Spectral tomography is performed to determine the properties of this composite-type SNRs individual components, which have only recently been distinguished through X-ray observations. Our results indicate that the spectral index of the pulsar wind nebula (PWN), or plerion, is alpha_P ~ 0.25. We observe a spectral index of alpha_S ~ 0.56 throughout most of the SNR shell region, but also detect a gradient in alpha in the south-eastern component. We compare the spectral index and flux density with recent single-dish radio data of the source. Also, the radio efficiency and morphological properties of this PWN are found to be consistent with results for other known PWN systems.
We compare recent observations of the supernova remnant G11.2-0.3 taken with the VLA during 2001-02 with images from VLA archives (1984-85) to detect and measure the amount of expansion that has occurred during 17 years. The bright, circular outer shell shows a mean expansion of (0.71 +/- 0.15)% and (0.50 +/- 0.17)%, from 20- and 6-cm data, respectively, which corresponds to a rate of 0.057 +/- 0.012/yr at 20 cm and 0.040 +/- 0.013/yr at 6 cm. From this result, we estimate the age of the remnant to be roughly between 960 and 3400 years old, according to theoretical models of supernova evolution. This is highly inconsistent with the 24000 yr characteristic age of PSR J1811-1925, located at the remnants center, but, rather, is consistent with the time since the historical supernova observed in 386 AD. We also predict that G11.2-0.3 is currently in a pre-Sedov evolutionary state, and set constraints on the distance to the remnant based on Chandra X-ray spectral results.