Out of the Frying Pan: A Young Pulsar With a Long Radio Trail Emerging From SNR G315.9-0.0

The faint radio supernova remnant SNR G315.9–0.0 is notable for a long and thin trail that extends outward perpendicular from the edge of its approximately circular shell. In a search with the Parkes telescope, we have found a young and energetic pulsar that is located at the tip of this collimated linear structure. PSR J1437–5959 has period P = 61 ms, characteristic age kyr, and spin-down luminosity erg s −1 . It is very faint, with a flux density at 1.4 GHz of about 75 μJy. From its dispersion measure of 549 pc cm −3 , we infer d ≈ 8 kpc. At this distance and for an age comparable to τ c , the implied pulsar velocity in the plane of the sky is V t = 300 km s −1 for a birth at the center of the SNR, although it is possible that the SNR/pulsar system is younger than τ c and that V t > 300 km s −1 . The highly collimated linear feature is evidently the pulsar wind trail left from the supersonic passage of PSR J1437–5959 through the interstellar medium surrounding SNR G315.9–0.0.