A CANDIDATE OPTICAL COUNTERPART TO THE MIDDLE AGED γ -RAY PULSAR PSR J1741–2054
- INAF—Istituto di Astrofisica Spaziale e Fisica Cosmica Milano, via E. Bassini 15, I-20133, Milano (Italy)
- INAF—Osservatorio Astronomico di Roma, via Frascati 33, I-00040, Monteporzio (Italy)
- Department of Astrophysics and Theory of Gravity, Maria Curie-Sklodowska University, ul. Radziszewskiego 10, 20-031 Lublin (Poland)
- Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Pisa, I-56127 Pisa (Italy)
- Centre for Astronomy, National University of Ireland, Newcastle Road, Galway (Ireland)
We carried out deep optical observations of the middle aged γ -ray pulsar PSR J1741−2054 with the Very Large Telescope (VLT). We identified two objects, of magnitudes m {sub v} = 23.10 ± 0.05 and m {sub v} = 25.32 ± 0.08, at positions consistent with the very accurate Chandra coordinates of the pulsar, the faintest of which is more likely to be its counterpart. From the VLT images we also detected the known bow-shock nebula around PSR J1741−2054. The nebula is displaced by ∼0.″9 (at the 3 σ confidence level) with respect to its position measured in archival data, showing that the shock propagates in the interstellar medium consistently with the pulsar proper motion. Finally, we could not find evidence of large-scale extended optical emission associated with the pulsar wind nebula detected by Chandra , down to a surface brightness limit of ∼28.1 mag arcsec{sup −2}. Future observations are needed to confirm the optical identification of PSR J1741−2054 and characterize the spectrum of its counterpart.
- OSTI ID:
- 22666082
- Journal Information:
- Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 825, Issue 2; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0004-637X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
RADIO DETECTION OF LAT PSRs J1741-2054 AND J2032+4127: NO LONGER JUST GAMMA-RAY PULSARS
THE BALMER-DOMINATED BOW SHOCK AND WIND NEBULA STRUCTURE OF {gamma}-RAY PULSAR PSR J1741-2054