A Cannonball Pulsar

cannonball.jpgEnglish et al. conducted imaging with the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array and performed a Fermi timing analysis of the 115 millisecond γ-ray and radio pulsar PSR J0002+6216, which is at a distance of ~ 6,500 light-years, and was discovered in 2017 by the Einstein@Home citizen-science project. Their research demonstrates that the pulsar lies at the apex of a narrowly collimated, cometary-like, seven arcminute tail of nonthermal radio emission, which they identify as a bow-shock pulsar wind nebula. The tail of the nebula points back toward the geometric center of the supernova remnant CTB 1 (G116.9+0.2) 28 arcminutes away, at a position angle θ μ  = 113°. They measured a proper motion with 2.9σ significance from their Fermi timing analysis giving μ = 115 ± 33 milliarcseconds/year and θ μ  = 121° ± 13°, corresponding to a large transverse pulsar velocity of 1100 km/sec at a distance of 2 kpc. This proper motion is of the right magnitude and direction to support the claim that PSR J0002+6216 was born from the same supernova that produced CTB 1. This research explores the implications of this for pulsar birth periods, asymmetric supernova explosions, and mechanisms for pulsar natal kick velocities.

Image Credit: Jayanne English, University of Manitoba; F. Schinzel et al.; NRAO/AUI/NSF; DRAO/Canadian Galactic Plane Survey; and NASA/IRAS.

Publication: F. K. Schinzel (NRAO) et al., The Tail of PSR J0002+6216 and the Supernova Remnant CTB 1, Astrophysical Journal Letters, 876, L17 (3 May 2019).

NRAO Press Release: Astronomers Find "Cannonball Pulsar" Speeding Through Space

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