Seminar: Collimated particle-beams from pulsars and precession: The Vela Story

Prof Avinash Deshpande 

Raman Research Institute

In the long march towards the elucidation of the mysterious ways of pulsars, now numbering about two thousand, a few special ones have taught us more than most of the rest put together. The Vela pulsar is one such, and played an important role in several ways within months of its discovery in 1968. The superb capabilities of the Chandra telescope have put this pulsar in the limelight again by providing a spectacular image in X-rays of the surrounding nebula. Its form and proportions, reminiscent of pre-Columbian pectoral ornaments, are loaded richly with information about many aspects. This talk will attempt to highlight some of the possible new key messages this pulsar brings to us.

We show that the bright arcs, the jet-like features and the diffuse components in the Vela X-ray nebula can be explained together in detail by our model in which the arcs are understood as traces of the particle beams from the two magnetic poles at the shock front. We consider this as an important evidence for collimated particle beams from pulsars’ magnetic poles. We will also discuss the observed variability in features in the Vela X-ray nebula, and assess the relevance and implication of our model to the observations on the Crab and other remnants.