The Vela-X pulsar wind nebula revisited with four years of Fermi Large Area Telescope observations

Grondin, M. -H.; Romani, R. W.; Lemoine-Goumard, M.; Guillemot, L.; Harding, A. K.; Reposeur, T.

doi:10.1088/0004-637X/774/2/110

The Vela-X pulsar wind nebula revisited with four years of Fermi Large Area Telescope observations

Journal Article · Wed Aug 21 00:00:00 EDT 2013 · The Astrophysical Journal

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-637X/774/2/110· OSTI ID:1356565

Grondin, M. -H. ^[1]; Romani, R. W. ^[2]; Lemoine-Goumard, M. ^[3]; Guillemot, L. ^[4]; Harding, A. K. ^[5]; Reposeur, T. ^[3]

Max-Planck-Institut fur Kernphysik, Heidelberg (Germany); Univ. de Toulouse, Toulouse (France)
Stanford Univ., Stanford, CA (United States). SLAC National Accelerator Lab.
Centre d'Etudes Nucleaires de Bordeaux Gradignan, Gradignan (France)
Max-Planck-Institut fur Radioastronomie, Bonn (Germany)
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), Greenbelt, MD (United States)

Here, the Vela supernova remnant (SNR) is the closest SNR to Earth containing an active pulsar, the Vela pulsar (PSR B0833–45). This pulsar is an archetype of the middle-aged pulsar class and powers a bright pulsar wind nebula (PWN), Vela-X, spanning a region of 2° × 3° south of the pulsar and observed in the radio, X-ray, and very high energy γ-ray domains. The detection of the Vela-X PWN by the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) was reported in the first year of the mission. Subsequently, we have reinvestigated this complex region and performed a detailed morphological and spectral analysis of this source using 4 yr of Fermi-LAT observations. This study lowers the threshold for morphological analysis of the nebula from 0.8 GeV to 0.3 GeV, allowing for the inspection of distinct energy bands by the LAT for the first time. We describe the recent results obtained on this PWN and discuss the origin of the newly detected spatial features.

View Accepted Manuscript (DOE)

Research Organization:: SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (SLAC), Menlo Park, CA (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE

Grant/Contract Number:: AC02-76SF00515

OSTI ID:: 1356565

Alternate ID(s):: OSTI ID: 22133905

Journal Information:: The Astrophysical Journal, Journal Name: The Astrophysical Journal Journal Issue: 2 Vol. 774; ISSN 0004-637X

Publisher:: Institute of Physics (IOP)Copyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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