Resolving the Bow Shock and Tail of the Cannonball Pulsar PSR J0002+6216

Abstract

We present X-ray and radio observations of the recently discovered bow-shock pulsar wind nebula (PWN) associated with PSR J0002+6216, characterizing the PWN morphology, which was unresolved in previous studies. The multifrequency, multiepoch Very Large Array (VLA) radio observations reveal a cometary tail trailing the pulsar and extending up to 5.′3, with multiple kinks along the emission. The presented radio continuum images from multiconfiguration broadband VLA observations are one of the first results from the application of multiterm multifrequency synthesis deconvolution in combination with the AWProject gridder implemented in the Common Astronomy Software Applications (CASA) package. The X-ray emission observed with Chandra extends to only 21″, fades quickly, and has some hot spots present along the extended radio emission. These kinks could indicate the presence of density variations in the local interstellar medium or turbulence. The bow-shock standoff distance estimates a small bow-shock region with a size of 0.003–0.009 pc, consistent with the pulsar spin-down power of = 1.51 × 1035 erg s−1 estimated from timing. The high-resolution radio image reveals the presence of an asymmetry in the bow-shock region, which is also present in the X-ray image. The broadband radio image shows an unusually steep spectrum along with a flat-spectrum sheath, which could indicate varying opacity or energy injection into the region. Spatially resolved X-ray spectra provide marginal evidence of synchrotron cooling along the extended tail. Our analysis of the X-ray data also shows that this pulsar has a low spin-down power and one of the lowest X-ray efficiencies observed in these objects.