Letter to the Editor
Probing the proper motion of the central compact object in Puppis-A with the Chandra high resolution camera
Max-Planck Institut für Extraterrestrische Physik, Giessenbachstrasse 1, 85741 Garching bei München, Germany e-mail: dhui@mpe.mpg.de
Received:
30
June
2006
Accepted:
8
August
2006
By making use of the sub-arcsecond angular resolution of the High Resolution Camera (HRC-I)
aboard the Chandra X-ray satellite we have examined the central compact object RX J0822-4300 in the
supernova remnant Puppis-A for a possible proper motion. Using data which span an epoch
of 1952 days we found the position of RX J0822-4300 different by 0.574 ± 0.184 arcsec, implying
a proper motion of 
± 34.46 mas/yr. For a distance of 2.2 kpc, this proper
motion is equivalent to a recoil velocity of 1121.79 ± 359.60 km s-1. The position angle is found to be 
± 
. Since both the magnitude and direction of the proper motion are in agreement with the birth place of RX J0822-4300 being near to the optical expansion
center of the supernova remnant, the result presented in this letter is a promising indication
of a fast moving compact object in a supernova remnant. Although the positional shift inferred
from the current data is significant at a ~
level only, one or more future HRC-I observations can obtain a much larger positional separation and further constrain the measurement.
Key words: pulsars: individual: RX J0822-4300
© ESO, 2006