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Accepted manuscript

Modelling of the atomic lines’ emission of fast moving pulsar nebulae

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 May 2025

I.N. Nikonorov*
Affiliation:
Institute of Astronomy, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, 119017 Russia Kazan Federal University, Kazan, 420008 Russia
M.V. Barkov
Affiliation:
Institute of Astronomy, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, 119017 Russia
M. Lyutikov
Affiliation:
Department of Physics and Astronomy, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907-2036, USA
*
Author for correspondence: I.N. Nikonorov, Email: inikonorov@inasan.ru.
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Abstract

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Bow shocks generated by pulsars moving through weakly ionised interstellar medium (ISM) produce emission dominated by non-equilibrium atomic transitions. These bow shocks are primarily observed as Hα nebulae. We developed a package, named Shu, that calculates non-LTE intensity maps in more than 150 spectral lines, taking into account geometrical properties of the pulsars’ motion and lines of sight. We argue here that atomic (C I, N I, O I) and ionic (S II, N II, O III, Ne IV) transitions can be used as complementary and sensitive probes of ISM. We perform self-consistent 2D relativistic hydrodynamic calculations of the bow shock structure and generate non-LTE emissivity maps, combining global dynamics of relativistic flows, and detailed calculations of the non-equilibrium ionisation states. We find that though typically Hα emission is dominant, spectral fluxes in [O III], [S II] and [N II] may become comparable for relatively slowly moving pulsars. Overall, morphology of non-LTE emission, especially of the ionic species, is a sensitive probe of the density structures of the ISM.

Type
Research Article
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited.
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Astronomical Society of Australia