X- and γ-Ray Pulsations of the Nearby Radio-faint PSR J1741-2054
Belfiore, A.; Camilo, F.; Marelli, M.; De Luca, A.; Sivakoff, G. R.; Salvetti, D.; Caraveo, P.; Saz Parkinson, P.; Sarazin, C.
Italy, United States, Hong Kong SAR, Canada
Abstract
We report the results of a deep XMM-Newton observation of the radio-faint γ-ray pulsar J1741-2054 and its nebula together with the analysis of five years of Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) data. The X-ray spectrum of the pulsar is consistent with an absorbed power law plus a blackbody, originating at least partly from the neutron star cooling. The nebular emission is consistent with that of a synchrotron pulsar wind nebula, with hints of spatial spectral variation. We extended the available Fermi LAT ephemeris and folded the γ-ray and X-ray data. We detected X-ray pulsations from the neutron star: both the thermal and non-thermal components are ~35%-40% pulsed, with phase-aligned maxima. A sinusoid fits the thermal-folded profile well. A 10 bin phase-resolved analysis of the X-ray emission shows softening of the non-thermal spectrum during the on-pulse phases. The radio, X-ray, and γ-ray light curves are single-peaked, not phase-aligned, with the X-ray peak trailing the γ-ray peak by more than half a rotation. Spectral considerations suggest that the most probable pulsar distance is in the 0.3-1.0 kpc range, in agreement with the radio dispersion measure.