PSR J1124–5916: Discovery of a Young Energetic Pulsar in the Supernova Remnant G292.0+1.8

We report the discovery with the Parkes radio telescope of a pulsar associated with the ~1700 yr old oxygen-rich composite supernova remnant G292.0+1.8. The pulsar PSR J1124-5916 has a period of 135 ms and a period derivative of 7.4 × 10^-13, implying a characteristic age of 2900 yr, a spin-down luminosity of 1.2 × 10³⁷ ergs s^-1, and a surface magnetic field strength of 1.0 × 10¹³ G. Association between the pulsar and the synchrotron nebula previously identified with Chandra within this supernova remnant is confirmed by the subsequent detection of X-ray pulsations by Hughes et al. The pulsar's flux density at 1400 MHz is very small, S ≈ 80 μJy, but the radio luminosity of Sd² ~ 2 mJy kpc² is not especially small, although it is 1 order of magnitude smaller than that of the least luminous young pulsar previously known. This discovery suggests that very deep radio searches should be done for pulsations from pulsar wind nebulae in which the central pulsed source is yet to be detected and possibly from other more exotic neutron stars.