Pulsar Wind Nebulae: a successful marriage of observations and simulations
by
Niccolò Bucciantini(Nordita)
→
Europe/Stockholm
FA31
FA31
Description
Pulsar Wind Nebulae(PWNe) are the poster-children of high energy relativistic astrophysics. They are close, well resolved in our observation, and perhaps the most studied and better understood of the many astrophysical system where relativistic outflows and particle acceleration are at work. Our understanding of the dynamics of these system, have stemmed from a lucky combination of high resolution X-ray imaging (mostly thank to CHANDRA) and the coincidental development of numerical codes to handle the outflow and dynamical properties of relativistic MHD.
I will review how the subject, which had stagnated for some 20 years, was revived at the beginning of the millennium, and how a beautifully coherent picture has developed leading to a now, commonly agreed paradigm, which has branched outside the field of SNRs themselves.
