The discovery of a pulsar wind nebula around the magnetar candidate AXP 1E1547.0-5408

Abstract

We report the detection of extended emission around the anomalous X-ray pulsar AXP 1E1547.0-5408 using archival data of the Chandra X-ray satellite. The extended emission consists of an inner part, with an extent of 45arsec and an outer part with an outer radius of 2.9arcmin, which coincides with a supernova remnant shell previously detected in the radio. We argue that the extended emission in the inner part is the result of a pulsar wind nebula, which would be the first detected pulsar wind nebula around a magnetar candidate. Its ratio of X-ray luminosity to pulsar spin-down power is comparable to that of other young pulsar wind nebulae, but its X-ray spectrum is steeper than most pulsar wind nebulae. We discuss the importance of this source in the context of magnetar evolution.

Accepted by Astrophysical Journal Letters (4 pages, 3 figures, 2 tables). This new version has a longer introductory section and an improved discussion on dust scattering