Description
We have used a set of dedicated astrometric data from the Hubble Space Telescope to measure the parallax and proper motion of the nearby neutron star RX J0720.4-3125. At each of eight epochs over 2 years, we used the High Resolution Camera of the Advanced Camera for Surveys to measure the position of the B=26.6 target to a precision of ~2mas (~0.07pix) relative to 22 other stars. From these data we measure a parallax of plx=2.8+/-0.9mas (for a distance of 360^+170^_-90_pc) and a proper motion of mu=107.8+/-1.2mas/yr. Exhaustive testing of every stage of our analysis suggests that it is robust, with a maximum systematic uncertainty on the parallax of 0.4mas. The distance is compatible with earlier estimates made from scaling the optical emission of RX J0720.4-3125 relative to the even closer neutron star RX J1856.5-3754. The distance and proper motion imply a transverse velocity of 180^+90^_-40_km/s, comparable to velocities observed for radio pulsars. The speed and direction suggest an origin for RX J0720.4-3125 in the Trumpler 10 OB association ~0.7Myr ago, with a possible range of 0.5-1.0Myr given by the uncertainty in the distance.
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