INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Cagliari, loc. Poggio dei Pini, strada 54, I-09012, Capoterra (CA), Italy.
Science. 2010 Feb 5;327(5966):663-5. doi: 10.1126/science.1183844. Epub 2009 Dec 31.
Pulsars are known to power winds of relativistic particles that can produce bright nebulae by interacting with the surrounding medium. These pulsar wind nebulae are observed by their radio, optical, and x-ray emissions, and in some cases also at TeV (teraelectron volt) energies, but the lack of information in the gamma-ray band precludes drawing a comprehensive multiwavelength picture of their phenomenology and emission mechanisms. Using data from the AGILE satellite, we detected the Vela pulsar wind nebula in the energy range from 100 MeV to 3 GeV. This result constrains the particle population responsible for the GeV emission and establishes a class of gamma-ray emitters that could account for a fraction of the unidentified galactic gamma-ray sources.
脉冲星被认为能够产生相对论性粒子风，这些粒子风可以通过与周围介质相互作用产生明亮的星云。这些脉冲星风星云可以通过射电、光学和 X 射线发射来观测，在某些情况下也可以在太电子伏特（TeV）能量下观测到，但伽马射线波段缺乏信息，使得无法全面描绘它们的现象学和发射机制的多波长图像。使用来自 AGILE 卫星的数据，我们在 100 MeV 至 3 GeV 的能段探测到船帆座脉冲星风星云。这一结果限制了负责 GeV 发射的粒子种群，并确立了一类伽马射线发射体，它们可能构成了银河系伽马射线源中未被识别的一部分。
