High-energy pulsations and phase-resolved spectroscopy of PSR J1741-2054

Abstract

We report the results of a deep XMM-Newton observation of the radio-faint $\gamma$-ray pulsar J1741-2054 and its nebula together with the analysis of 5 years of Fermi 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 $\gamma$-ray and X-ray data. We detected X-ray pulsations from the neutron star: both the thermal and non-thermal components are about 35-40% pulsed, with phase-aligned maxima. A sinusoid fits the thermal folded profile well. A 10-bin phase-resolved analysis shows softening of the non-thermal spectrum during the on-pulse phases. The radio, X-ray and $\gamma$-ray light curves are single-peaked, not phase-aligned, with the X-ray peak trailing the $\gamma$-ray peak by over half a rotation. Spectral considerations suggest that the most probable pulsar distance is in the 0.3-1.0 kpc range.