Guitar Nebula: extreme accelerator in extreme environment

TL;DR

The Guitar nebula exemplifies extreme particle acceleration and interacts with a dense interstellar medium, revealing insights into pulsar wind nebulae and the surrounding environment.

Contribution

This study identifies the Guitar nebula as an extreme accelerator and suggests it passes through a dense shell of an old supernova remnant, providing new environmental context.

Findings

Particles in the nebula are accelerated to near the neutron star's maximal electric potential.

Bright Hα emission indicates the pulsar traverses a dense, low-ionization ISM region.

High magnetic fields (~100 μG) are required for the observed X-ray emission.

Abstract

Guitar nebula is a prime example of a class of bow-shock pulsar wind nebulae (PWNe), powered by a wind of a supersonically moving neutron star. Bow-shock PWNe can probe particle acceleration processes in relativistic pulsar winds, as well as the structure of the interstellar medium (ISM). We demonstrate that the Guitar is an exceptional object in a number of ways. First, particles escaping the PWN and forming the X-ray ``kinetic jet'' need to be accelerated to the energies corresponding to the maximal electric potential of the neutron star $\eta_\text{acc}\gtrsim 3/4$ : it is another example of the class of extreme accelerators. Second, exceptionally bright H$_\alpha$ emission requires that the central pulsar PSR J2225+6535 passes through a dense, low ionization ISM region. Bright X-ray emission of the ``kinetic jet'' then also requires exceptionally high magnetic field, $\sim 100~\mu$G. We hypothesize that Guitar passes through the one of long-predicted, narrow dense shells of an old supernova remnant, currently in the ``pressure-driven snowplow'' regime.