A Broadband Study of the Emission from the Composite Supernova Remnant MSH 11-62
Gelfand, Joseph D.; Temim, Tea; Hughes, John P.; Slane, Patrick; Gaensler, B. M.; Castro, Daniel; Funk, Stefan; Rousseau, Romain; Foight, Dillon; Lemoine-Goumard, Marianne; Moffett, David A.; Dodson, Richard G.; Bernstein, Joseph P.
United States, France, Australia, United Arab Emirates
Abstract
MSH 11-62 (G291.0-0.1) is a composite supernova remnant for which radio and X-ray observations have identified the remnant shell as well as its central pulsar wind nebula. The observations suggest a relatively young system expanding into a low-density region. Here, we present a study of MSH 11-62 using observations with the Chandra, XMM -Newton, and Fermi observatories, along with radio observations from the Australia Telescope Compact Array. We identify a compact X-ray source that appears to be the putative pulsar that powers the nebula, and show that the X-ray spectrum of the nebula bears the signature of synchrotron losses as particles diffuse into the outer nebula. Using data from the Fermi Large Area Telescope, we identify γ-ray emission originating from MSH 11-62. With density constraints from the new X-ray measurements of the remnant, we model the evolution of the composite system in order to constrain the properties of the underlying pulsar and the origin of the γ-ray emission.