A Fast-Moving Central Compact Object in Puppis-A

Abstract

Utilizing two Chandra High Resolution Camera (HRC-I) observations with an epoch separation of somewhat more than five years, we have measured the proper motion of the central compact object, RX J0822-4300, in the supernova remnant Puppis-A for the first time. The position of RX J0822-4300 is found to be different by 0.574 +/- 0.184 arcsec, implying a proper motion of 107.49 +/- 34.46 mas/yr with a position angle of 241 degree +/- 24 degree. For a distance of 2.2 kpc, this proper motion is equivalent to a recoil velocity of 1121.79 +/- 359.60 km/s. Both the magnitude and the 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. Although the positional shift inferred from the current data is significant at a ~ 3 sigma level only, one or more future HRC-I observations can obtain a much larger positional separation and further constrain the measurement.