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American Astronomical Society, Astrophysical Journal, 1(957), p. 23, 2023

DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/acfa02

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The Polarized Cosmic Hand: IXPE Observations of PSR B1509−58/MSH 15−5<sup>2</sup>

Journal article published in 2023 by Roger W. Romani ORCID, Josephine Wong ORCID, Niccoló Di Lalla ORCID, Nicola Omodei ORCID, Fei Xie ORCID, C.-Y. Ng ORCID, Riccardo Ferrazzoli ORCID, Alessandro Di Marco ORCID, Niccoló Bucciantini ORCID, Maura Pilia ORCID, Patrick Slane ORCID, Martin C. Weisskopf ORCID, Simon Johnston ORCID, Marta Burgay ORCID, Deng Wei ORCID and other authors.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

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Data provided by SHERPA/RoMEO

Abstract

Abstract We describe IXPE polarization observations of the pulsar wind nebula (PWN) MSH 15−52, the “Cosmic Hand.” We find X-ray polarization across the PWN, with B-field vectors generally aligned with filamentary X-ray structures. High-significance polarization is seen in arcs surrounding the pulsar and toward the end of the “jet,” with polarization degree PD > 70%, thus approaching the maximum allowed synchrotron value. In contrast, the base of the jet has lower polarization, indicating a complex magnetic field at significant angle to the jet axis. We also detect significant polarization from PSR B1509−58 itself. Although only the central pulse phase bin of the pulse has high individual significance, flanking bins provide lower-significance detections and, in conjunction with the X-ray image and radio polarization, can be used to constrain rotating vector model solutions for the pulsar geometry.