2010/07/16 by Aya Bamba, Takayasu Anada, Tadayasu Dotani +4 · 50 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomy #Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations #Astrophysics #Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena #Physics #Pulsar #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #astro-ph.HE
paper · pdf · doi:10.1088/2041-8205/719/2/l116
published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters 719(2), L116-L120 (IOP Publishing) · 11 pages, 17 figures, ApJL, in press
arxiv created 2010/07/16 · openalex publication_date 2010/07/27 · arxiv updated 2015/05/19 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
During the search for counterparts of very high energy gamma-ray sources, we serendipitously discovered large, extended, low surface brightness emission from pulsar wind nebulae (PWNe) around pulsars with the ages up to ∼100 kyr, a discovery made possible by the low and stable background of the Suzaku X-ray satellite. A systematic study of a sample of eight of these PWNe, together with Chandra data sets, has revealed that the nebulae keep expanding up to ∼100 kyr, although the timescale of the synchrotron X-ray emission is only ∼60 yr for typical magnetic fields of 100 μG. Our result suggests that the accelerated electrons up to ∼80 TeV can escape from the PWNe without losing most energies. Moreover, in order to explain the observed correlation between the X-ray size and the pulsar spin-down age, the magnetic field strength in the PWNe must decrease with time.