XMM-Newton observations of the Vela pulsar Original Research Article

We present spectral analysis from XMM-Newton observations of the Vela pulsar. We analyzed thermal emission from the pulsar dominating below ∼1 keV since extracted spectra are heavily contaminated by nebular emission at higher energy. Featureless high-resolution spectra of the reflection grating spectrometer aboard XMM-Newton suggest the presence of a hydrogen atmosphere, as previously indicated by Chandra results. Both the temperature and radius are consistent with those values deduced from Chandra. The derived Chandra and XMM-Newton temperature of T∞≃(6.4–7.1)×105 K at its age of ∼104 years is below the standard cooling curve.