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M. Roberts (Eureka Scientific/McGill University), M. Lyutikov (CITA/UBC), V. Kaspi, C. Tam (McGill University)
The supernova remnant G11.2-0.3, associated with the historical guest star of 386 AD, is a textbook example of a composite supernova remnant. It has a very circular shell with a young pulsar at the center, about which is a radio and X-ray pulsar wind nebula (PWN). However, the X-ray morphology is very different from the bright torus and weak jet of the Crab and Vela PWN. Instead, it is very narrow with no obvious toroidal component. We present data from a series of Chandra X-ray observations and compare it to high resolution VLA radio images. These show the X-ray emission to be dominated by a series of variable, roughly equally spaced hotspots in the narrow jet-like outflows. These suggest local enhancements of the magnetic field, possibly related to the ion cyclotron radius or some form of standing wave within a radio emitting cavity. These observations may shed light on similar patterns seen in other outflow systems as well as on the mystery of the relationship between the radio and X-ray emitting electrons in PWN.
The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: roberts@physics.mcgill.ca
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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 36 5
© 2004. The American Astronomical Society.