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XMM-Newton and Geminga

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 July 2016

Patrizia Caraveo
Affiliation:
Istituto di Astrofisica Spaziale e Fisica Cosmica, Sezione di Milano “G. Occhialini” — CNR, Via Bassini 15, 1-20133 Milano, Italy
Andrea De Luca
Affiliation:
Istituto di Astrofisica Spaziale e Fisica Cosmica, Sezione di Milano “G. Occhialini” — CNR, Via Bassini 15, 1-20133 Milano, Italy
Sandro Mereghetti
Affiliation:
Istituto di Astrofisica Spaziale e Fisica Cosmica, Sezione di Milano “G. Occhialini” — CNR, Via Bassini 15, 1-20133 Milano, Italy
Alberto Pellizzoni
Affiliation:
Istituto di Astrofisica Spaziale e Fisica Cosmica, Sezione di Milano “G. Occhialini” — CNR, Via Bassini 15, 1-20133 Milano, Italy
Giovanni Bignami
Affiliation:
Istituto di Astrofisica Spaziale e Fisica Cosmica, Sezione di Milano “G. Occhialini” — CNR, Via Bassini 15, 1-20133 Milano, Italy
Anatoly Tur
Affiliation:
Centre d'Etude Spatiale des Rayonnements, Toulouse, France and 1Università degli Studi di Pavia, Via Ugo Bassi, 6 — Pavia, Italy
Roberto Mignani
Affiliation:
European Southern Observatory, D-85740, Garching bei Munchen, Germany
Werner Becker
Affiliation:
Max-Plank Institut für Extraterrestrische Physik, 85741 Garching bei München, Germany

Abstract

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A deep XMM-Newton/EPIC observation of the field of the Geminga pulsar unveiled the presence of two elongated parallel X-ray tails trailing the neutron star. They are aligned with the object's supersonic motion, extend for ∼ 2′, and have a nonthermal spectrum produced by electron-synchrotron emission in the bow shock between the pulsar wind and the surrounding medium. Such a first ever X-ray detection of a pulsar bow shock allows us to gauge the pulsar electron injection energy and the shock magnetic field while constraining the angle of Geminga's motion and the local matter density.

Type
Part 4: Pulsar Wind Nebulae and Their Environments
Copyright
Copyright © Astronomical Society of the Pacific 2004 

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