The Guitar Filament’s Magnetic Field Revealed by Starlight Polarization

Abstract

The Guitar nebula surrounding PSR B2224+65 boasts a pulsar X-ray filament likely aligned with the local magnetic field. We present new RoboPol stellar polarization data distributed along the line of sight to the pulsar. The polarizing effect of intervening magnetized dust allows us to extract a model for the dust-weighted magnetic field. We detect a magnetic field angle consistent with the filament if the pulsar is located in the more distant zone of its parallax-estimated distance range.