THE VELA PULSAR AND ITS LIKELY COUNTER-JET IN THE K{sub s} BAND
- Ioffe Physical Technical Institute, Politekhnicheskaya 26, St. Petersburg 194021 (Russian Federation)
- Department of Astronomy, Universidad de Concepcion, Casilla 160-C, Concepcion (Chile)
- Observatorio Astronómico Nacional SPM, Instituto de Astronomía, UNAM, Ensenada, BC (Mexico)
We report the first high spatial resolution near-infrared (near-IR) imaging of the Vela pulsar in the K{sub s} band obtained with the new adaptive optics system recently mounted on the Gemini-South telescope. For the first time, we have firmly detected the pulsar in this band with K{sub s} ≈ 21.8 mag, and have resolved in detail an extended feature barely detected previously in the immediate vicinity of the pulsar in the J{sub s}H bands. The pulsar K{sub s} flux is fully consistent with the extension of the flat optical spectrum of the pulsar toward the IR and does not confirm the strong IR flux excess in the pulsar emission suggested earlier by the low spatial resolution data. The extended feature is about two times brighter than the pulsar and is likely associated with its X-ray counter-jet. It extends ∼2'' southward of the pulsar along the X-ray counter-jet and shows knot-like structures and a red spectrum.
- OSTI ID:
- 22270832
- Journal Information:
- Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 775, Issue 2; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0004-637X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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