Discovery of a radio nebula around PSR J0855-4644

TL;DR

This paper reports the discovery of a large, bow shock-like radio nebula around PSR J0855-4644, revealing new insights into its pulsar wind nebula and its interaction with the surrounding medium.

Contribution

The study presents the first detection of a diffuse radio nebula around PSR J0855-4644 using upgraded GMRT observations, expanding understanding of pulsar wind nebulae morphology.

Findings

Radio nebula spatially coincident with X-ray PWN

Morphology suggests a bow shock nebula with 100 km/s velocity

Estimated energetics of the PWN from flux density

Abstract

We report the discovery of a diffuse radio emission around PSR J0855--4644 using an upgraded GMRT (uGMRT) observation at 1.35 GHz. The radio emission is spatially coincident with the diffuse X-ray pulsar wind nebula (PWN) seen with XMM but is much larger in extent compared to the compact axisymmetric PWN seen with Chandra. The morphology of the emission, with a bright partial ring-like structure and two faint tail-like features strongly resembles a bow shock nebula, and indicates a velocity of 100 km/s through the ambient medium. We conclude that the emission is most likely to be associated with the radio PWN of PSR J0855-4644. From the integrated flux density, we estimate the energetics of the PWN.