Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope

Morphological and Spectral Modeling of Fermi Pulsar Wind Nebulae

Carlo van Rensburg
(Christo Venter)

Abstract:

We have developed a leptonic pulsar wind nebula (PWN) emission code that is able to predict the spatially-dependent spectral energy distribution (SED) as well as the PWN size as a function of energy. The code can thus also predict the spectral index vs. radius for any energy range, as well as the associated surface brightness profile. We fit all four of these PWN properties simultaneously using a Markov Chain Monte Carlo ensemble sampler to find best-fit parameters. Addition of more datasets provides more stringent constraints on the fit parameters. Our code’s ability to yield both spectral and morphological results will contribute to interpreting results by the future Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) that promise to deliver more morphological details than currently available.