Chandra Detection of a Synchrotron Nebula Around the Vela-like Pulsar J1016-5857

Abstract

We report on a 19 ks observation of the pulsar J1016-5857 with the Chandra X-ray Observatory. This "Vela-like" pulsar has rotation period 107 ms, characteristic age 21 kyr, and spin-down power 2.6e36 ergs/s. A relatively bright centrally peaked source of radius ~25" around the radio pulsar position has a spectrum that is well fitted by an absorbed power law with photon index 1.32+-0.25. We regard this as a newly identified pulsar wind nebula that we designate PWN G284.0-1.8. We do not detect the pulsar either as a point X-ray source or as a pulsed source in a 55 ks observation with the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer. The isotropic PWN luminosity is 3e32 ergs/s in the 2-10 keV range, for a distance of 3 kpc that is consistent with the measured neutral hydrogen column density. The unpulsed flux from the pulsar is less than 30% of the measured PWN flux. The brightest component of the PWN, near the pulsar, shows extended emission of size ~2" that may indicate, by analogy with other young pulsars, the wind termination shock. In the Chandra image we also detect a very faint extended structure ~1' by 2' in size that is highly asymmetric about the pulsar position. This structure is a good match in width and position angle to the tip of a "finger" of radio emission that appears to connect to the nearby supernova remnant G284.3-1.8, but we cannot characterize it further with the available data. There is a variable X-ray point source only 1.5 arcmin from the pulsar, which we identify using optical spectroscopy as an accreting binary.