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# Network Sensitivity to Geographical Configuration

## 1 Introduction

Considerations of network analysis have helped shape the growth of the global network of gravitational wave detectors. The sites of the Laser Interferometric Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) detectors were chosen to facilitate a coincident network analysis ; far enough apart to produce a detectable direction-dependent relative time delay, but close enough together to have similar antenna patterns. Likewise, the proposed site for the Australian International Gravitational Observatory (AIGO) was chosen to be near-antipodal to the LIGO detectors and thus to share their antenna patterns . Instruments such as VIRGO  and the proposed Laser Cryogenic Gravitational Telescope (LCGT)  have not been sited with regard to such considerations.

The coincident network analysis technique , in its simplest form, allows independent searches to be performed by each detector in the network; a signal is only detected by the network when the signal is detected by each member detector. A more recently proposed technique is *coherent* network analysis , whereby the output of all detectors is collected and then a single search is performed on the combined data. The coherent network analysis has a theoretical advantage over the coincident network analysis, but the practical merits of each are still under debate.

The increasing viability of the new coherent network analysis technique  encourages us to reconsider existing results about the global network; in particular, the influence of instrument siting on the quality of the network as a whole .

We have introduced a formalism  to answer some of the questions arising about how best to configure a network of gravitational wave detectors; in particular, how to optimally site a new detector augmenting an existing network, so as to maximize the detection rate for a standard-candle binary inspiral, and whether the effect is significant enough to warrant consideration in planning the growth of the global network.

## 2 Network Model

Consider the parameter space representing a network of $`n`$ interferometric gravitational wave detectors. The physical location and orientation of an interferometer can be defined by the latitude $`\theta `$ and longitude $`\varphi `$ of the beam-splitter, and the orientation angle $`\psi `$ of the x-arm with respect to north, under the assumption of a horizontal detector on a perfectly spherical Earth. If the detectors are further assumed to be identical up to location and orientation (that is, with identical arm lengths and noise curves), then a network may be described by the $`3n`$ parameters $`[(\theta _1,\varphi _1,\psi _1),\mathrm{},(\theta _n,\varphi _n,\psi _n)]`$, forming a $`3n`$ dimensional parameter space $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$.

We have devised a *figure of merit*, $`f:\mathrm{\Theta }`$, as a measure of the quality of the network. We use a quantity proportional to the detection rate for a population of randomly oriented standard-candle binary inspirals uniformly distributed in a flat space. For a network with identical detectors, uncorrelated noise and a fixed source class, the structure of the noise curve and strain waveform contribute only a constant multiplicative factor to the detection rate, so that we may neglect them and consider only the relative orientation and distance between the network and the source, and the analysis algorithm used. We follow Finn’s maximum likelihood test formulations of the coincident and coherent algorithms , and additionally assume, for computational amenability, that the threshold $`\lambda `$ is *high* with respect to the noise power (see  for details).

The $`3n`$-dimensional parameter space is too large to be computationally amenable, and so we consider only proper subsets of particular interest. For example, the best site (under our figure of merit) to augment an existing network of $`n`$ detectors can be found by fixing the first $`n`$ detectors of a $`n+1`$ detector network, and varying only $`(\theta _{n+1},\varphi _{n+1},\psi _{n+1})`$. Furthermore, noting that the figure of merit depends only weakly on the orientation111See Figures 1, 2, 3, 4: at the upper and lower edges, corresponding to the north and south geographic poles, the detectors rotate in place as the longitude varies; despite this the figure of merit remains constant to a good approximation., $`\psi _{n+1}`$, we can fix it to an arbitrary value, and vary only the latitude and longitude. The figure of merit over this two-dimensional section of parameter space then corresponds to a map of the relative merit of different sites on the Earth for augmenting an existing network.

## 3 Results

Consider first a single interferometer, at the site  of LIGO Livingston Observatory (LLO). For a coincident network analysis, the merit of an additional site to augment LLO is given in Figure 1. It demonstrates, as expected, that sites near or near-antipodal to LLO are best to augment it. This is the rationale behind the siting of the LIGO detectors, and the proposed AIGO detector. The worst configurations produce a substantially reduced detection rate; approximately 40% that of the optimal configuration. Unfortunately, the locations of VIRGO and the proposed LCGT fall into this category.

It is interesting to note that for this simple case the map bears some resemblance to the “peanut” antenna pattern of the fixed single detector; the weak directionality of the varying detector, and the superiority of a co-aligned network  are responsible for this effect . This resemblance breaks down for more complicated networks.

Considering the same configuration of a fixed LLO detector and a varying detector with a coherent network analysis in Figure 2, the qualitative structure of the map is similar, but quantitatively it is quite different. For a coherent analysis, the worst configurations produce a detection rate that is still 90% of optimal; site merit does not vary substantially with location.

We now move on to consider an approximation to the existing global network of the larger interferometric gravitational wave detectors. We model the LIGO-VIRGO network as three identical interferometers at the sites of LIGO Hanford Observatory (LHO), LIGO Livingston Observatory and VIRGO . Note that this model neglects the 2 kilometre LHO instrument, and the differences between the LIGO and VIRGO instruments. Similarly, we augment this three-detector network with a fourth (identical) detector at different locations and compare the relative detection rates of the resulting network.

Using a coincident network analysis in Figure 3, we see that the merit of the network varies moderately with location, with multiple minima of about 70% of the best achievable detection rates.

Under a coherent network analysis in Figure 4, we once again see a qualitative similarity to Figure 3 in the locations of maxima and minima, but quantitatively much less variation than in the coincident case, with only 6% separating the best and worst sites. As expected, this indicates that AIGO is an optimal site to augment the existing global network; however, the weak dependance of event rate on geographical location means that its advantage over other sites is slight.

## 4 Conclusion

Under our model, it is clear that the (binary inspiral) detection rate for a global network is insensitive to the geographical configuration of its component detectors when a coherent analysis is used, in contrast to when a simple coincident analysis is used. Whilst the LIGO detectors and proposed AIGO detector are well sited to complement one another under a coincident analysis, the sites of the VIRGO detector and proposed LCGT detector are far from optimal; our results demonstrate that under a coherent analysis the cost of this sub-optimal siting is substantially reduced, on at least one figure of merit. In this sense, the global network is closer to optimal for a coherent analysis than for a coincident analysis. Our results also indicate that since, under a coherent analysis, detection rate is insensitive to detector siting, the location of an augmenting detector could be optimized for other network properties (for example, directional resolution) without compromising the event rate.

It is important to note that the model does not compare the absolute detection rates for the two analysis techniques; we cannot say that one method would produce a higher detection rate than the other for a given false alarm rate. We have considered only one class of source and one figure of merit, but our formalism permits us to refine and extend the network model and the range of questions with which it is used to answer.

The authors wish to thank Lee Samuel Finn for many fruitful discussions on this topic, and for making available computer systems supported by National Science Foundation grant NSF 99-96213. This project is supported by an Australian National University Research Grant, and by an award under the Merit Allocation Scheme on the National Facility of the Australian Partnership for Advanced Computing.

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# X-ray Detection of Pulsar PSR B1757-24 and its Nebular Tail

## 1 Introduction

PSR B1757$``$24 is a 124-ms radio pulsar discovered near the supernova remnant G5.4$``$1.2 (Manchester et al., 1985). Radio timing observations established that the pulsar has characteristic age 16 kyr and spin-down luminosity $`\dot{E}=2.6\times 10^{36}`$ erg s-1 (Manchester et al., 1991). The pulsar is at the tip of a flat-spectrum radio protuberance just outside the west side of the supernova remnant (SNR) shell. The protuberance consists of a small, roughly circular nebula, G5.27$``$0.90, from which a collimated jet-like feature is emerging on its western side. The pulsar is at the westernmost tip of the collimated feature. The morphology and spectrum of the jet are strongly suggestive of a ram-pressure confined pulsar wind nebula (PWN) (Frail & Kulkarni, 1991). Thus, assuming an association between the pulsar and G5.4$``$1.2, the former appears to have overtaken the expanding shell, presumably because of a large kick at birth. Given the angular displacement of the pulsar from the best-estimate remnant center, and if the pulsar’s characteristic age is a good estimate of its true age, this implies a proper motion of $``$75 mas yr-1, corresponding to a transverse space velocity of $`v_t`$1800 km s-1 (Frail et al., 1994), for a distance of 5 kpc (Caswell et al., 1987; Frail et al., 1994). However, recent interferometric observations have failed to detect the implied proper motion (Gaensler & Frail, 2000). They set a 5$`\sigma `$ upper limit on the proper motion of $`<25`$ mas yr-1, corresponding to $`v_t<590`$ km s-1. This suggests that the pulsar is older than its characteristic age, or that the assumed pulsar birth place is incorrect.

A ram-pressure confined pulsar wind should radiate X-rays as part of the broad-band synchrotron spectrum that results from the shock-acceleration and subsequent gyration of relativistic wind electron/positron pairs in the ambient magnetic field. We report here on Chandra X-ray Observatory observations of PSR B1757$``$24 in which we detect the source for the first time in X-rays.

## 2 Observations and Results

The PSR B1757$``$24/G5.4$``$1.2 field was observed using the Advanced CCD Imaging Spectrometer (ACIS) instrument aboard the Chandra X-ray Observatory on 2000 April 12. The ACIS CCD camera (Burke et al., 1997) is sensitive to X-rays in the 0.2–10 keV band with 0$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$492 pixels. The pulsar was positioned on the back-illuminated S3 chip of the ACIS-S array, offset from the aimpoint by $``$0$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$37 in the Y-direction, in order to avoid source counts from being split between two readout nodes. Data were collected in the nominal timing mode, with 3.241 s exposures between CCD readouts, and “FAINT” spectral mode. The standard Chandra screening criteria produced a total usable exposure time of 19.6 ks.

The ACIS image reveals a faint point source near the radio pulsar position, and a fainter tail of emission on the eastern side, similar to the radio emission (Figure 1). Figure 2 shows the distribution of counts as a function of distance from the point source (with the point source excluded) in two 30 wedges on the eastern and western sides of the pulsar, along with the mean of the field. With respect to the mean and the western side, the eastern side clearly has an overdensity of counts extending nearly 20′′ from the point source. Simulations of a point source at the pulsar position using the Chandra simulator MARX are consistent with what is observed in all directions but east. As the tail is in the chip readout direction, we were concerned about it being an instrumental artifact. However, trails in ACIS images aligned with the readout direction are only seen for bright sources, are symmetric about them, and have uniform intensity along the readout axis (M. Bautz, D. Edgar, H. Marshall, personal communication). Furthermore, we verified that there were no pointing anomalies during the observation and that the count rate for the tail photons is uniform in time over the observation. We therefore conclude that the extended, collimated emission we have detected is genuinely astrophysical.

The standard processing for ACIS produces measured source coordinates with a nominal accuracy quoted as 0$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$6, however several problems are known to exist with the plate scale solution at the time of writing111http://asc.harvard.edu/mta/ASPECT/aspect\_caveats.html. We derived our own astrometric solution by comparing field stars in our observation with catalogued optical coordinates. The X-ray source positions were measured using the CIAO source detection software celldetect with the cleaned $`0.310`$ keV Level 2 event file as input. For a signal-to-noise threshold set to 3 and the background estimated using ldetect, we found 9 significant X-ray sources within 5 of the pulsar position. The on-line USNO-A2.0 astrometric reference catalogs (Monet et al., 1996) provided likely counterparts for 8 of the 9 X-ray sources. The USNO catalog gives stellar positions to an nominal $`1\sigma `$ error of $`0\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}25`$ (Deutsch, 1999, Monet, personal communication) although proper motion has not been applied. The offsets between the optical and X-ray positions are well clustered, strongly suggesting correct identifications. The average offset is $`0\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$6, consistent with the expected systematic error in the absolute coordinates of ACIS. The calibrated position of the putative X-ray counterpart to the pulsar is RA $`18^\mathrm{h}01^\mathrm{m}00^\mathrm{s}.027`$, DEC $`24^{}51^{}27\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}53`$ (J2000) with RMS error $`0\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}31`$. This is within 1.2$`\sigma `$ of the radio pulsar location found by Gaensler & Frail (2000). Thus, the point source is consistent with being the X-ray counterpart of the pulsar.

To characterize the energy dependence of the emission from the point source, a spectrum was extracted from a circular region having radius 7 pixels (3$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$4). An annular background region was chosen (approximately centered on the point source) having inner and outer radii 33 and 98 pixels, respectively. We found a total of 438 source counts and an estimated 8 background counts in the source region. We note that the background on the S3 chip was dominated by scattered emission from the nearby bright X-ray binary GX 5$``$1. The CIAO tools mkrmf and mkarf were used to generate common response files for the source and background regions. The data were regrouped such that spectral bins contained a minimum of 15 counts, resulting in 27 independent spectral bins. We fit the spectrum with the spectral analysis package XSPEC (version 11). We characterize the spectrum using two different models: a power law and thermal bremsstrahlung, each photoelectrically absorbed. Both provide acceptable fits, although the plasma temperature in the thermal model is poorly constrained. The results are shown in Table 1. We verified using XSPEC that the expected $``$2.6% pileup fraction does not have a significant impact on the fitted parameters.

The tail east of the pulsar is much fainter than the point source. We attempted to characterize its spectrum by assuming a power-law model and holding the equivalent neutral hydrogen column density $`N_H`$ fixed at the value determined from the point source (see Table 1). We extracted a spectrum for the tail using a box having dimensions 40$`\times `$18 pixels, which contained 118 counts. We used the same annulus to estimate the background as we did for the point source; in this way we estimate that approximately 40 counts were from the background, leaving 78 source counts. Spectral fits to the tail in the 0.3–9 keV range for a power-law model yielded a mediocre fit to the data ($`\chi _\nu ^2=2.0`$ for 4 degrees of freedom). The best-fit power-law photon index of $`1.0\pm 0.6`$ is consistent with relatively hard emission, as implied by the existence of a significant number of counts above 5 keV. However, given the 90% confidence range for $`N_H`$ (Table 1), we found that photon indexes in the range $``$0.32 to 1.8 are consistent with the data. Lower values of $`N_H`$, corresponding to lower values of the photon index, give slightly better fits. Improved characterization of the spectrum of the tail must await a deeper observation of the source. Nevertheless, we can determine the absorved surface brightness in the 2–8 keV band to be $`4.5\times 10^{16}`$ erg s-1 cm-2 arcsec-2, with uncertainty of $``$30%. The total unabsorbed flux in the 2–8 keV band in our extraction region is $`9.8\times 10^{14}`$ erg s-1 cm-2, with similar uncertainty.

## 3 Discussion

### 3.1 The Pulsar

Given the spatial coincidence of the X-ray point source with the radio pulsar position, the former is likely to be emission from the radio pulsar itself, in particular, non-thermal pulse-phase-averaged magnetospheric emission. The observed 2–10 keV flux (Table 1) implies an unabsorbed luminosity, for a distance $`d=5`$ kpc, of $`2\times 10^{33}`$ erg s-1, assuming beaming angle $`\varphi =\pi `$ sr. This implies an efficiency of conversion of spin-down luminosity into magnetospheric emission of $`0.00020(\varphi /\pi \mathrm{sr})(d/5\mathrm{kpc})^2`$. This efficiency, as well as the measured power-law photon index (Table 1), are consistent with those observed for the magnetospheric components of other radio pulsars (Becker & Trümper, 1997). The detection of low duty-cycle X-ray pulsations could unambiguously confirm this interpretation. The current data cannot however rule out the possibility that the emission is coming from a very compact nebular region near the pulsar. At radio wavelengths, the head of the bow shock is only $`1.5^{\prime \prime }`$ from the pulsar (Gaensler & Frail, 2000). The reverse shock, which terminates the wind, is likely unresolvable in the Chandra image.

Marsden et al. (2001) suggested that PSR B1757$``$24 has a fallback disk from which it accretes, providing non-magnetic dipole spin-down torque to account for the possible difference between the pulsar’s true and characteristic ages. They predict a thermal bremsstrahlung spectrum having $`kT50`$ keV and an X-ray luminosity (in an unspecified energy band) roughly an order of magnitude less than that predicted for magnetospheric emission. The Chandra detection we report here is consistent with standard magnetospheric emission. However, our data cannot rule out a fainter thermal component.

### 3.2 The Nebular Tail

The tail X-ray emission is likely to be synchrotron radiation from the shocked pulsar wind. The pulsar wind appears to be confined by the ram pressure of the interstellar medium. If the pulsar’s space velocity greatly exceeds the ambient medium’s sound speed, a strong forward bow shock travels in front of it, and a reverse shock closer to the pulsar terminates its relativistic wind.

Conventional wisdom suggests that X-ray synchrotron nebulae should be smaller than the corresponding radio nebulae because radio electrons have much longer lives than do X-rays. This is consistent with the apparent contraction of the Crab nebula with increasing photon energy. However, for PSR B1757$``$24, Figures 1 and 2 demonstrate that the observed X-ray tail extends nearly 20′′ (0.48($`d`$/5 kpc) pc) to the east of the pulsar, nearly as long as the detected radio tail (which, $`10^{\prime \prime }`$ further east, suddenly expands to form the flat-spectrum bubble, G5.27$``$0.90; Frail & Kulkarni 1991). The $`5\sigma `$ upper limit on the proper motion implies a transverse velocity of $`v_t<590`$ km s-1 (Gaensler & Frail, 2000). Thus, the time since the pulsar was at the eastern-most tip of the observed X-ray emission must be $`>800`$ yr. The synchrotron lifetime of a photon of energy $`E`$ (in keV) in a magnetic field $`B_4`$ (in units of $`10^4`$ G) is $`t_s40E^{1/2}B_4^{3/2}`$ $`\mathrm{yr}`$. Thus, for $`t_s>800`$ yr and $`E19`$ keV, $`B<0.814\mu `$G. This is much less than the equipartition magnetic field $`B_{\mathrm{eq}}\sqrt{\dot{E}/r_s^2c}70\mu `$G expected in the vicinity of the pulsar. Here, $`r_s`$ is the distance from the pulsar to the bow shock head, the approximate scale over which equipartition should hold (Kennel & Coroniti, 1984). This assumes the flow is subsonic, being confined on the trailing side by the high SNR pressure. This assumption seems reasonable, as in the absence of such confinement, it is hard to understand why this pulsar, which has space velocity not much larger than the average pulsar (e.g. Lyne & Lorimer, 1994), should have such a strking ram-pressure confined PWN. Hence, the X-ray tail behind PSR B1757$``$24 is unlikely to be a trail in the conventional sense, in that it cannot be synchrotron emission from pulsar wind particles just left behind after the passage of the pulsar.

Rather, assuming the spectrum of the tail is indeed non-thermal, freshly shocked wind particles must be continuously fed eastward with a velocity much larger than the pulsar space velocity, $`v_fv_t`$. This is similar to the picture suggested for a putative X-ray tail behind PSR B1929+10 (see Wang et al., 1993, although that tail has not been confirmed) and a cometary-shaped PWN in the LMC SNR N157B (Wang & Gotthelf, 1998). However, Lyutikov (in preparation) has developed an alternative model of the structure of the tail region. In this model, the pulsar wind is shocked near the pulsar and forms a subsonically expanding tail confined by ISM ram pressure (without forming a de Laval nozzle as suggested by Wang et al. 1993). The typical velocities of the flow are weakly relativistic near the pulsar, decreasing downstream as the tail expands. At its end, the tail flow finally forms a pressure confined expanding bubble, presumably G5.27$``$0.90.

We can constrain the flow velocity $`v_f`$ of the wind particles in the tail by noting that it must be high enough to continuously supply particles given their cooling times. Thus, the flow time $`t_f\stackrel{<}{_{}}t_s`$. Assuming that the magnetic field reaches its equipartition value near the bow-shock head and that this value holds for the approximately one-dimensional tail region too, we find $`t_s\stackrel{>}{_{}}70(E/1\mathrm{keV})^{1/2}(B_{\mathrm{eq}}/70\mu \mathrm{G})^{3/2}`$ yr. As the tail extends to 0.48 pc for $`d=5`$ kpc, this implies $`v_f\stackrel{>}{_{}}6800(d/5\mathrm{kpc})(E/1\mathrm{keV})^{1/2}(B_{\mathrm{eq}}/70\mu \mathrm{G})^{3/2}`$ km s-1.

The tail emission has low flux. The efficiency with which the pulsar’s $`\dot{E}`$ is converted into tail X-rays in the 2–8 keV band is only 0.00011$`(d/5\mathrm{kpc})^2`$, roughly half of the point-source efficiency. This is in contrast to other rotation-powered pulsars, like the Crab, whose X-ray nebular emission is much brighter than the point-source output. Without timing information, we cannot rule out an ultra-compact nebula as the source of the point-source emission. But even so, the total efficiency for conversion of spin-down energy to nebula energy would be significantly less than that of most rotation-powered pulsars (Becker & Trümper, 1997).

Several effects may reduce the X-ray efficiency of ram pressure confined PWNs. First, the efficiency of conversion of $`\dot{E}`$ into X-ray emitting particles may be lower since the reverse shock in the ram-pressure-confined PWNs is strong only in the forward part of the head, subtending a much smaller solid angle than in a static PWN. Second, the low X-ray efficiency is expected if the flow time of the relativistic plasma through the tail is shorter than the synchrotron life time. In this case the particles will be able to emit only a small fraction of the energy that they acquired during acceleration at the reverse shock; most of the energy of the wind will be spent on doing work inflating the bubble at the end of the tail. Indeed, a similar argument was put forth Chevalier (2000) to explain the low efficiencies of the Vela and CTB 80 pulsars, both of which exhibit bow-shock morphologies and have relatively flat spectra. Finally, it is also possible that low surface brightness emission from beyond the eastern tip of the observable X-ray tail, or even from G5.27$``$0.90, have gone undetected in our observation. For example, emission from the direction of that nebula, having X-ray surface brightness half of the ACIS-S3 background, would contribute roughly two orders of magnitude more flux.

We can compare the observed X-ray tail flux with that predicted from the radio flux density and spectrum. Frail & Kulkarni (1991) found that the radio tail has a flat spectrum ($`\alpha 0`$, where $`\alpha `$ is the energy spectral index), consistent with what we find at X-ray energies (§2). However, it is impossible to produce a continuous spectrum for the tail between the radio, where $`f_{20\mu \mathrm{eV}}=2.4\times 10^8`$ erg cm-2 s-1 keV-1 (Frail & Kulkarni, 1991), and X-ray, where $`f_{5\mathrm{keV}}1.6\times 10^{14}`$ erg cm-2 s-1 keV-12) bands. Thus there must be an intrinsic spectral break, which, even if it lies as low as in the radio band (e.g. 5 GHz), demands an X-ray photon index $`>1.8`$, much larger than expected for a synchrotron cooling break, and only marginally consistent with the data (§2). Therefore, the broadband spectrum has at least two inflection points between the radio and X-ray bands, i.e. the emission in the two bands originates from separate populations of accelerated particles. The same problem arises in the Crab nebula (e.g. see Kennel & Coroniti, 1984).

## 4 The Supernova Remnant

We have detected no X-ray emission from SNR G5.4–1.2. Assuming an association, if the pulsar’s characteristic age is a good estimate of the true age, then the SNR is young ($`t_{\mathrm{SNR}}16`$ kyr), and we might expect thermal X-ray emission from hot gas behind the SNR shock. We considered a $`4^{}\times 4^{}`$ region of the SNR centered on coordinates (J2000) RA 18h 01m 18s, DEC –24 51 10′′. A background correction was applied using a region having the same dimensions next to the source region, scaling for the different effective areas. We find no excess emission in this region, with a 5$`\sigma `$ upper limit on the count rate of 0.017 cts s-1 in the range 0.3–8.0 keV. Assuming $`d=5`$ kpc, the shock velocity in the Sedov solution should be $`600`$ km s-1, corresponding to a shock temperature $`kT0.5`$ keV. Using a Raymond-Smith model with $`kT=0.5`$ keV and $`N_H=3\times 10^{22}`$ cm-2, and assuming the area under consideration encloses a volume $`6\times 10^{57}`$ cm3, the limit on the count rate in this region corresponds to $`n_en_H<0.15`$ cm-6, where $`n_e`$ and $`n_H`$ are the electron and hydrogen densities, respectively. Assuming a composition of pure ionized hydrogen, the upper limit on the pre-shock density is $`n_H<0.1`$ cm-3. This result is not a strong function of the assumed temperature: for $`kT=0.2`$(5) keV, we find $`n_H<0.50(0.04)`$ cm-3. These limits are unconstraining. If the system has an age of 16 kyr, the inferred density is $`n_H0.003`$ cm-3 (Frail & Kulkarni, 1991). If the SNR is much older than indicated by the pulsar’s spin-down (Gaensler & Frail, 2000), then the SNR expansion speed is $`<100`$ km s-1, and any X-ray emission from the SNR is expected to be too faint to detect for this distance and absorption.

We thank M. Roberts for useful discussions. This work is supported by SAO grant GO0-1133A, and by NASA LTSA grant NAG5-8063 and NSERC grant Rgpin 228738-00 to V.M.K. E.V.G is supported by the NASA LTSA grant NAG5-22250. B.M.G. acknowledges the support of a Hubble Fellowship awarded by STScI.