Magnetic Flux Tubes Illuminated by Pulsar Winds

TL;DR

This paper models how magnetic flux tubes connected to pulsars can cause highly beamed emission of TeV electrons, explaining observed structures like pulsar tails and filaments.

Contribution

It introduces a magnetic flux tube model for electron transport along pulsar-connected magnetic fields, explaining anisotropic emission patterns.

Findings

Particles exhibit anisotropic pitch angle distribution leading to beamed emission.

The model constrains magnetic field strength and particle populations in pulsar tails.

Application to specific pulsars explains observed X-ray and TeV emissions.

Abstract

Observations of linear structure connecting pulsars to gamma-ray halos reveal injection of TeV electrons into the interstellar medium (ISM). In some cases, this could be attributed to nearly scattering-free electron transport along large-scale magnetic fields connected to pulsar winds with very slow diffusion across the field lines. In this work we model this process with a magnetic flux tube emerging from the pulsar and attached to the ISM magnetic field. We show that particles in this case have an anisotropic distribution of magnetic pitch angle, such that the overall emission is highly beamed. We apply this model to pulsar tails and filaments, including the extended X-ray and TeV emission associated with PSR J1740+1000 and the misaligned X-ray jet in the Guitar Nebula, to constrain their particle population and magnetic fields.