Profile and polarization characteristics of energetic pulsars
Patrick Weltevrede, Simon Johnston
备注：
Corrected typo in pulsar name. 26 pages, 11 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS. Astro-ph version is missing 528 figures due to file size restrictions. Please download complete paper from http://www.atnf.csiro.au/people/pulsar/wj08b.pdf
In this paper we compare the characteristics of pulsars with a high spin-down energy loss rate (Edot) against those with a low Edot. We show that the differences in the total intensity pulse morphology between the two classes are in general rather subtle. A much more significant difference is the fractional polarization which is very high for high Edot pulsars and low for low Edot pulsars. The Edot at the transition is very similar to the death line predicted for curvature radiation. This suggests a possible link between high energy and radio emission in pulsars and could imply that gamma-ray efficiency is correlated with the degree of linear polarization in the radio band. The degree of circular polarization is in general higher in the second component of doubles, which is possibly caused by the effect of co-rotation on the curvature of the field lines in the inertial observer frame.
The most direct link between the high energy emission and the radio emission could be the sub-group of pulsars which we call the energetic wide beam pulsars. These young pulsars have very wide profiles with steep edges and are likely to be emitted from a single magnetic pole. The similarities with the high energy profiles suggest that both types of emission are produced at the same extended height range in the magnetosphere. Alternatively, the beams of the energetic wide beam pulsars could be magnified by propagation effects in the magnetosphere. This would naturally lead to decoupling of the wave modes, which could explain the high degree of linear polarization. As part of this study, we have discovered three previous unknown interpulse pulsars (and we detected one for the first time at 20 cm). We also obtained rotation measures for 18 pulsars whose values had not previously been measured.
Compact astrophysical objects produce some of the highest energy light in the universe. The challenge is to determine what mechanism produces these photons.
The observed population of young radio pulsars has grown substantially in recent years due to a combination of large-scale surveys and deep targeted searches. Many of the pulsars are associated with supernova remnants and/or unidentified gamma-ray sources. This review summarises the state of play and looks ahead to likely advances in the near future.
Young radio pulsars shed vast amounts of rotational energy, sometimes as high as 100,000 times the total energy loss rate from the sun. The wide range of phenomena resulting from this energy loss include: glitches, timing noise, jets, bow shocks, bullets and plerions and are be reviewed from an observational perspective. Past and proposed surveys for young radio pulsars are summarised along with pulsar birth velocities and associations with supernova remnants. There are now 4 radio pulsars with measured braking indices. The resulting constraints on the evolution of young radio pulsars are disc…
At least one massive binary system containing an energetic pulsar, PSR B1259-63/SS2883, has been recently detected in the TeV gamma-rays by the HESS telescopes. These gamma-rays are likely produced by particles accelerated in the vicinity of the pulsar and/or at the pulsar wind shock, in comptonization of soft radiation from the massive star. However, the process of gamma-ray production in such systems can be quite complicated due to the anisotropy of the radiation field, complex structure of the pulsar wind termination shock and possible absorption of produced gamma-rays which might initiate …
We present the discovery of PSR J1410-6132, a 50-ms pulsar found during a high-frequency survey of the Galactic plane, using a 7-beam 6.3-GHz receiver on the 64-m Parkes radio telescope. The pulsar lies within the error box of the unidentified EGRET source 3EG J1410-6147, has a characteristic age of 26 kyr and a spin-down energy of 10^37 erg s^-1. It has a very high dispersion measure of 960+/-10 cm^-3 pc and the largest rotation measure of any pulsar, RM=+2400 +/- 30 rad m^-2. The pulsar is very scatter-broadened at frequencies of 1.4 GHz and below, making pulsed emission almost impossible to…
Some massive binaries should contain energetic pulsars which inject relativistic leptons from their inner magnetospheres and/or pulsar wind regions. If the binary system is compact enough, then these leptons can initiate inverse Compton (IC) $e^\pm$ pair cascades in the anisotropic radiation field of a massive star. $γ$-rays can be produced in the IC cascade during its development in a pulsar wind region and above a shock in a massive star wind region where the propagation of leptons is determined by the structure of a magnetic field around the massive star. For a binary system with specific p…
The Crab Nebula demonstrates that neutron stars can interact with their environments in spectacular fashion, their relativistic winds generating nebulae observable across the electromagnetic spectrum. At many previous conferences, astronomers have discussed, debated and puzzled over the complicated structures seen in the Crab, but have been limited to treating most other pulsar wind nebulae (PWNe) as simple calorimeters for a pulsar's spin-down energy. However, with the wealth of high-quality data which have now become available, this situation has changed dramatically. I here review some of t…
We present a new survey for pulsars in the error boxes of the low-latitude EGRET sources 3EG J1027-5817, 3EG J1800-2338 and 3EG J1810-1032. Although all of these sources have been covered by previous pulsar surveys, the recent discovery of the young, energetic pulsar PSR J1410-6132 at 6.7 GHz has shown that pulsars of this type can be hidden from low frequency surveys. Using an observing frequency of 3.1 GHz we discovered a 91-ms pulsar, PSR J1028-5819, which observations made at the Parkes telescope and the Australia Telescope Compact Array have shown to be young and energetic. We believe thi…
We investigate the conditions required for the production of electron-positron pairs above a pulsar polar cap (PC) and the influence of pair production on the energetics of the primary particle acceleration. Assuming space-charge limited flow acceleration including the inertial frame-dragging effect, we allow both one-photon and two-photon pair production by either curvature radiation (CR) photons or photons resulting from inverse-Compton scattering of thermal photons from the PC by primary electrons. We find that, while only the younger pulsars can produce pairs through CR, nearly all known r…
We present the discovery of the Vela-like radio pulsar J1856+0245 in the Arecibo PALFA survey. PSR J1856+0245 has a spin period of 81ms, a characteristic age of 21kyr, and a spin-down luminosity Edot = 4.6 x 10^36 ergs/s. It is positionally coincident with the TeV gamma-ray source HESS J1857+026, which has no other known counterparts. Young, energetic pulsars create wind nebulae, and more than a dozen pulsar wind nebulae have been associated with very-high-energy (100GeV-100TeV) gamma-ray sources discovered with the HESS telescope. The gamma-ray emission seen from HESS J1857+026 is potentially…
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. PSR J1124-5916 has period 135 ms and period derivative 7.4e-13, implying characteristic age 2900 yr, spin-down luminosity 1.2e37 erg/s, and surface magnetic field strength 1.0e13 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 ~ 0.08 m…
We report the discovery and follow-up timing observations of the 63 ms radio pulsar, PSR J1105-6107. The pulsar is young, having a characteristic age of only 63 kyr and, from its dispersion measure, is estimated to be at a distance of ~7 kpc from the Sun. We consider its possible association with the nearby supernova remnant G290.1-0.8 (MSH 11-61A); an association requires that the pulsar's proper motion be ~22 mas/yr (corresponding to ~650 km/s for a distance of 7 kpc) directed away from the remnant center, assuming that the characteristic age is the true age. The pulsar's spin-down luminosit…
Polarization profiles of several hundred pulsars have been published recently (eg. Gould & Lyne 1998, GL98; Weisberg et al. 1999). In this report, we summarize the characteristics of circular and high linear polarizations of pulsar profiles, based on all previously published data.
We update the systematic studies of circular polarization in integrated pulse profiles by Han et al (1998). Data of circular polarization profiles are compiled. Sense reversals can occur in core or cone components, or near the intersection between components. The correlation between the sense of circular polarization and the sense of position angle variation for conal-double pulsars is confirmed with a much large database. Circular polarization of some pulsars has clear changes with frequency. Circular polarization of millisecond pulsars is marginally different from that of normal pulsars.
We consider the polarization behaviour of radio waves propagating through an ultrarelativistic highly magnetized electron-positron plasma in a pulsar magnetosphere. The rotation of magnetosphere gives rise to the wave mode coupling in the polarization-limiting region. The process is shown to cause considerable circular polarization in the linearly polarized normal waves. Thus, the circular polarization observed for a number of pulsars, despite the linear polarization of the emitted normal waves, can be attributed to the limiting-polarization effect.
Polarization-angle density displays are given for pulsars B0809+74 and B2303+30, which exhibit no evidence of the systematic polarization-angle rotation within individual subpulses previously reported for these two stars. The ``drifting'' subpulses of both pulsars exhibit strikingly linear and circular polarization which appears to reflect the characteristics of two nearly orthogonally polarized emission ``modes''--along which the severe average-profile depolarization that is characteristic of their admixture at comparable overall intensities.
We present new results on the recently discovered 69 ms X-ray pulsar AXS J161730-505505, the sixth youngest sample of all known pulsars. We have undertaken a comprehensive X-ray observing campaign of AXS J161730-505505 with the ASCA, SAX, and XTE observatories and follow its long term spin-down history between 1989 and 1999, using these, archival GINGA and ASCA data sets, and the radio ephemeris. The spin-down is not simply described by a linear function as originally thought, but instead we find evidence of a giant glitch (|Delta P/P| > 10E-6) between 1993 August and 1997 September, perhaps t…
We present a physical interpretation for the generation of circular polarization resulting from the propagation of radiation through a magnetized plasma in terms of a rotation measure gradient, or `Faraday wedges'. Criteria for the observability of scintillation-induced circular polarization are identified. Application of the theory to the circular polarization in pulsars and compact extragalactic sources is discussed.
We report on a sensitive survey for radio pulsar wind nebulae (PWN) towards 27 energetic and/or high velocity pulsars. Observations were carried out at 1.4 GHz using the Very Large Array and the Australia Telescope Compact Array, and utilised pulsar-gating to search for off-pulse emission. These observing parameters resulted in a considerably more sensitive search than previous surveys, and could detect PWN over a much wider range of spatial scales (and hence ambient densities and pulsar velocities). However, no emission clearly corresponding to a PWN was discovered. Based on these non-detecti…
In an earlier paper, we introduced a model for pulsars in which non-radial oscillations of high spherical degree (\el) aligned to the magnetic axis of a spinning neutron star were able to reproduce subpulses like those observed in single-pulse measurements of pulsar intensity. The model did not address polarization, which is an integral part of pulsar emission. Observations show that many pulsars emit radio waves that appear to be the superposition of two linearly polarized emission modes with orthogonal polarization angles. In this paper, we extend our model to incorporate linear polarization…
We present Arecibo time-aligned, total intensity profiles for 46 pulsars over an unusually wide range of radio frequencies and multi-frequency, polarization-angle density diagrams and/or polarization profiles for 58 pulsars pulsars at some or all of the frequencies 50, 111/130, 430 and 1400 MHz. The frequency-dependent dispersion delay has been removed In order to align the profiles for study of their spectral evolution and wherever possible the profiles of each pulsar are displayed on the same longitude scale. Most of the pulsars within Arecibo's declination range that are sufficiently bright…
We have analyzed the polarization properties of pulsars at an observing frequency of 4.9 GHz. Together with low frequency data, we are able to trace polarization profiles over more than three octaves into an interesting frequency regime. At those high frequencies the polarization properties often undergo important changes such as significant depolarization. A detailed analysis allowed us to identify parameters, which regulate those changes. A significant correlation was found between the integrated degree of polarization and the loss of rotational energy E^dot. The data were also used to revie…
Mean pulse profiles and polarization properties are presented for nine southern pulsars. The observations were made using the Parkes radio telescope at frequencies near 1330 MHz; three of the nine pulsars were also observed at 660 MHz. A very high degree of circular polarization was observed in PSR J1603-7202. Complex position angle variations which are not well described by the rotating-vector model were observed in PSRs J2124-3358 and J2145-0750, both of which have very wide profiles. Rotation measures were obtained for all nine pulsars, with two implying relatively strong interstellar magne…
We present linear polarization characteristics of pulsar radiation as predicted by two models of high-energy radiation from extended regions in the outer magnetosphere: the recently proposed two-pole caustic model, and the outer gap model.
We present a systematic study of the circular polarization in pulsar integrated profiles, based on published polarization data. For core components, we find no significant correlation between the sense-change of circular polarization and the sense of linear position angle variation. Circular polarization is not restricted to core components and, in some cases, reversals of circular polarization sense are observed across the conal emission. In conal double profiles, the sense of circular polarization is found to be correlated with the sense of position-angle variation. Pulsars with a high degre…
Propagation of radio waves in the ultrarelativistic magnetized electron-positron plasma of pulsar magnetosphere is considered. Polarization state of the original natural waves is found to vary markedly on account of the wave mode coupling and cyclotron absorption. The change is most pronounced when the regions of mode coupling and cyclotron resonance approximately coincide. In cases when the wave mode coupling occurs above and below the resonance region, the resultant polarization appears essentially distinct. The main result of the paper is that in the former case the polarization modes becom…
A variety of intriguing polarization patterns are created when polarization observations of the single pulses from radio pulsars are displayed in a two-dimensional projection of the Poincare sphere. In many pulsars, the projections produce two clusters of data points that reside at antipodal points on the sphere. The clusters are formed by fluctuations in polarization amplitude that are parallel to the unit vectors representing the polarization states of the wave propagation modes in the pulsar magnetosphere. In other pulsars, however, the patterns are more complex, resembling annuli and bow t…
Using polarimetric radio profiles of 84 pulsars at a wavelength of 6 cm, we present a correlation between the polarization and characteristic age of pulsars. Considering the large error connected with the value of the characteristic age, we speculate about the possibility of identifying young pulsars through their polarimetric properties. Using this method we have identified more than 20 possibly young pulsars including some with a relatively high characteristic age. Of these objects, seven have already been proposed to be associated with supernova remnants. For the remaining pulsars we find a…
We report on dual-frequency radio polarimetry observations of two young, energetic pulsars, PSRs J0940-5428 and J1301-6305. These were among the first Vela-like pulsars discovered in the Parkes Multibeam survey. We conducted observations of these pulsars with the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA) at center frequencies of 1384 and 2496 MHz using pulsar gating while preserving full Stokes parameters. After correcting for bandwidth depolarization, we have measured polarization characteristics, flux densities, and rotation measures for these pulsars. The spectral indices derived from the AT…
A statistical model of the polarization of pulsar radio emission is used to derive the general statistics of a polarization vector's orientation angles. The theoretical distributions are compared with orientation angle histograms computed from single-pulse, polarization observations of PSR B2020+28. The favorable agreement between the theoretical and measured distributions lends support to the underlying assumptions of the statistical model, and demonstrates, like recent work on other pulsars, that the handedness of circular polarization is associated with the radiation's orthogonally polarize…
We present spatially resolved spectroscopy of the supernova remnant (SNR) G292.0+1.8 with the Chandra X-ray observatory. This SNR contains the 135 ms pulsar, J1124-5916. We apply non-equilibrium ionization (NEI) models to the data. By comparing the derived abundances with those predicted from nucleosynthesis models, we estimate a progenitor mass of 30-40 solar masses. We also derive the intrinsic parameters of the supernova explosion such as its energy, the age of the SNR, the blast wave velocity, and the swept-up mass. In the Sedov interpretation, our estimated SNR age of 2,600 years is close…
The linear polarization position angle (PPA) of pulsar emission shows a wide variety of structures, which deviates from the classical rotating vector model. In this study we investigate the effect on the PPA due to emission arising from a range of heights. We demonstrate that by appropriately choosing the emission height we can reconstruct the PPA sweep across the integrated pulse profiles.
The Orthogonal Polarization Modes (OPM) have been reported observationally and accepted widely by pulsar researchers. However, no acceptable theory can show the origin of the OPM, which becomes a mystery in pulsar research field. Here a possible way to solve this mystery is presented. We ask a question: Does there exist any real so-called OPM in pulsar radiation? It is proposed in this paper that the `observed OPM' in individual pulses could be the results of depolarization of pulsar radiation and the observational uncertainties originated from polarimeter in observation. A possible way to che…
We have investigated the radio polarization properties of PSR J1119-6127, a recently discovered young radio pulsar with a large magnetic field. Using pulsar-gated radio imaging data taken at a center frequency of 2496 MHz with the Australia Telescope Compact Array, we have determined a rotation measure for the pulsar of +842 +/- 23 rad m^-2. These data, combined with archival polarimetry data taken at a center frequency of 1366 MHz with the Parkes telescope, were used to determine the polarization characteristics of PSR J1119-6127 at both frequencies. The pulsar has a fractional linear polariz…
At present three pulsars are known which clearly show a strongly increasing degree of circular polarization with frequency. As this is accompanied by a smooth decrease of linear polarization, we investigate, if this observation can be explained through a propagation mode transition from linear to circular polarization. Using a previously published model we find that the rate of change of the polarization types with frequency is well consistent with the theory. The small number of only three objects does of course not allow to draw a general conclusion for the whole sample of pulsars. However w…
Properties of circularly polarized waves are studied in the pulsar magnetosphere plasma. It is shown that some observational characteristics of the circular polarization observed in the pulsar radio emission can be qualitatively explained in the framework of the model based on anomalous Doppler resonance. Performed analysis provides that if the difference between Lorentz factors of electrons and positrons is relatively high, one of the circularly polarized waves becomes super-luminal and therefore can not be generated by cyclotron instability. We suggest that this case corresponds to the pulsa…
The Crab nebula and its pulsar have been observed for about 3 hours with the high-speed photo-polarimeter OPTIMA in January 2002 at the Calar Alto 3.5m telescope. The Crab pulsar intensity and polarization are determined at all phases of rotation with higher statistical accuracy than ever. Therefore, we were able to separate the so-called 'off-pulse' phase emission (with an intensity of about 1.2% compared to the main peak, assumed to be present at all phases) from the pulsed emission and show the 'net' polarization of the pulsed structures. Recent theoretical results indicate that the measure…
We present a comprehensive investigation of the radio polarization properties within the theory of natural electromagnetic wave modes in pulsar magnetospheres. Taking into account the curvature of the field lines, aberration effects and magnetic sweep-back we use the relativistic dielectric tensor in the low-density cold plasma approximation and derive the following polarization characteristics, which are in full agreement with the observational findings. Specifically, we demonstrate that 1. The degree of linear polarization decreases with increasing frequency. 2. The degree of circular polari…
New GMRT observations of the five-component pulsar B1857--26 provide detailed insight into its pulse-sequence modulation phenomena for the first time. The outer conal components exhibit a 7.4-rotation-period, longitude-stationary modulation. Several lines of evidence indicate a carousel circulation time $\P3hat$ of about 147 stellar rotations, characteristic of a pattern with 20 beamlets. The pulsar nulls some 20% of the time, usually for only a single pulse, and these nulls show no discernible order or periodicity. Finally, the pulsar's polarization-angle traverse raises interesting issues: i…
We consider the role of a propagation effect such as the stimulated Raman scattering on the polarization of radio pulses. When an intense electromagnetic wave with frequency close to the plasma frequency interacts with the plasma in the pulsar magnetosphere, the incident wave undergoes stimulated Raman scattering. Using typical plasma and magnetic field parameters, we compute the growth rate and estimate the polarization properties of the scattered mode. At some conditions, we find that the polarization properties of the scattered mode can become significantly different from those of the incid…
The low-frequency profiles of some pulsars manifest temporal broadening due to scattering, usually accompanied by flat polarization position angle (PA) curves. Assuming that the scattering works on the 4 Stokes parameters in the same way, we have simulated the effect of scattering on polarization profiles and find that the scattering can indeed flatten the PA curves. Since the higher-frequency profiles suffer less from scattering, they are convolved with scattering models to fit the observed low-frequency profiles. The calculated flat PA curves exactly reproduce the corresponding observations.
We present results of Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory EGRET observations of the unidentified high-energy gamma-ray sources 2EG J1049-5847 (GEV J1047-5840, 3EG J1048-5840) and 2EG J1103-6106 (3EG J1102-6103). These sources are spatially coincident with the young, energetic radio pulsars PSRs B1046-58 and J1105-6107, respectively. We find evidence for an association between PSR B1046-58 and 2EG J1049-5847. The gamma-ray pulse profile, obtained by folding time-tagged photons having energies above 400 MeV using contemporaneous radio ephemerides, has probability of arising by chance of 1.2E-4 accordi…
We study theoretical X-ray light curves and polarization properties of accretion-powered millisecond pulsars. We assume that the radiation is produced in two antipodal spots at the neutron star surface which are associated with the magnetic poles. We compute the angle-dependent intensity and polarization produced in an electron-scattering dominated plane-parallel accretion shock in the frame of the shock. The observed flux, polarization degree and polarization angle are calculated accounting for special and general relativistic effects. The calculations also extended to the case of nuclear-pow…
The existence of hot, two-temperature accretion flows is essential to the recent discussions of the low luminosity, hard X-ray emission from accreting neutron stars and black holes in Galactic binaries and massive black holes in low luminosity galactic nuclei. In these flows, protons are essentially virialized and relativistic energies for non-thermal protons are likely. Observational confirmation of the energetic protons' presence could further support the two-temperature accretion flow models. We point out that synchrotron emission from nonthermal relativistic protons could provide an observ…
Pulsar radio emission is modelled as a sum of two completely polarized non-orthogonal modes with the randomly varying Stokes parameters and intensity ratio. The modes are the result of polarization evolution of the original natural waves in the hot magnetized weakly inhomogeneous plasma of pulsar magnetosphere. In the course of wave mode coupling, the linearly polarized natural waves acquire purely orthogonal elliptical polarizations. Further on, as the waves pass through the cyclotron resonance, they become non-orthogonal. The pulse-to-pulse fluctuations of the final polarization characterist…
In this paper, we present a study of orthogonal polarization modes in the radio emission of PSR B1133+16, conducted within the frame of simultaneous, multi-frequency, single-pulse observations. Simultaneously observing at two frequencies (1.41 GHz and 4.85 GHz) provides the means to study the bandwidth of polarization features such as the polarization position angle. We find two main results. First, that there is a high degree of correlation between the polarization modes at the two frequencies. Secondly, the modes occur more equally and the fractional linear polarization decreases towards hig…
We consider the polarization properties of radiation emitted by relativistic charged particles while moving along the curved magnetic field lines in a pulsar manetosphere. We propose that the radiation emitted by positrons and electrons while moving along the curved magnetic field lines is orthogonally polarized. The polarization angle of each orthogonal polarization mode is well described by the rotating vector model. However, the polarization angle swings observed in micropulses and subpulses are often found to be contrary to the rotating vector model, and such swings are expected to arise d…
Qiao and his collaborators recently proposed an inverse Compton Scattering (ICS) model to explain radio emission of pulsars. In this paper, we investigate the polarization properties of pulsar emission in the model. First of all, using the lower frequency approximation, we derived the analytical amplitude of inverse Compton scattered wave of a single electron in strong magnetic field. We found that the out-going radio emission of a single relativistic electron scattering off the ``low frequency waves'' produced by gap-sparking should be linearly polarized and have no circular polarization at a…
We re-examine the characteristic polarization angle sweep of rotation-powered pulsars and calculate the expected deviations from this sweep caused by aberrational effects and by polar-cap current flow. We find that in addition to the previously known phase shift of the entire sweep by $ΔΦ= -4 r/R_L$, aberration shifts the polarization angle itself by $ΔΨ= -(10/3) (r/R_L) \cos α$. Similarly, current flow above the polar cap shifts the polarization sweep by $ΔΨ= (10/3) (r/R_L) (J/J_{GJ}) \cos α$, potentially providing a method of directly measuring the magnitude of the current. The competition b…
We investigate polarization of high-energy emissions from the Crab pulsar in the frame work of the outer gap accelerator. The recent version of the outer gap, which extends from inside the null charge surface to the light cylinder, is used for examining the light curve, the spectrum and the polarization characteristics, simultaneously. The polarization position angle curve and the polarization degree are calculated to compare with the Crab optical data. We show that the outer gap model explains the general features of the observed light curve, the spectrum and the polarization by taking into a…
We investigate circular polarization in pulsar radio emission through simultaneous observations of PSR B1133+16 at two frequencies. In particular, we investigate the association of the handedness of circular polarization with the orthogonal polarization mode phenomenon at two different frequencies. We find the association to be significant across the pulse for PSR B1133+16, making a strong case for orthogonal polarization modes determining the observed circular polarization. The association however is not perfect and decreases with frequency. Based on these results and assuming emission occurs…
We report the detection of radio and X-ray pulsations at a period of 51.6 ms from the X-ray source RX/AX J2229.0+6114 in the error box of the EGRET source 3EG J2227+6122. An ephemeris derived from a single ASCA observation and multiple epochs at 1412 MHz from Jodrell Bank indicates steady spin-down with P-dot = 7.83 x 10^(-14) s/s. From the measured P and P-dot we derive spin-down power E-dot = 2.2 x 10^(37) erg/s, magnetic field B = 2.0 x 10^(12) G, and characteristic age P/2P-dot = 10,460 yr. An image from the Chandra X-ray Observatory reveals a point source surrounded by centrally peaked di…
We derive in this an expression for the rotation of plane of polarization, of an electromagnetic wave, induced by the field of a gravitational wave propagating along the same direction $\approx \f{Gμd^2Ω^4}{3ø}$, $ø$ and $Ω$ being their respective frequencies using the geometrical optics limit of the wave equation for fields. Estimating the effect for the case of pulses from binary pulsars, one finds it too small to be observable, there could be other sources like inspiralling binary or an asymmetric neutron star where the effect could be in the observable region.
We observed the young energetic pulsar J1617-5055 with the Chandra ACIS detector for 60 ks. In addition to the pulsar, the X-ray images show a faint pulsar-wind nebula (PWN) seen up to ~1' from the pulsar. Deconvolution and reconstruction of the image reveal a brighter compact PWN component of ~1'' size, possibly with a jet-torus morphology. The PWN spectrum fits an absorbed power-law (PL) model with the photon index Gamma=1.5. The total PWN luminosity in the 0.5-8 keV band, L_{pwn}=3.2\times10^{33} ergs s^{-1} for d=6.5 kpc, is a fraction of 2\times 10^{-4} of the pulsar's spin-down power and…
We discuss our recent discovery of the giant radio emission from the Crab pulsar at its high frequency components (HFCs) phases and show the polarization characteristic of these pulses. This leads us to a suggestion that there is no difference in the emission mechanism of the main pulse (MP), interpulse (IP) and HFCs. We briefly review the size distributions of the Crab giant radio pulses (GRPs) and discuss general characteristics of the GRP phenomenon in the Crab and other pulsars.
We report on radio polarimetry observations for nine southern pulsars. Six of the nine in the sample are young, with characteristic ages under 100 kyr and high spin-down luminosities. All six show a significant degree of linear polarization. We also confirm a previously noticed trend in which the degree of linear polarization increases with spin-down luminosity. Where possible we have used the rotating-vector model of the pulsar emission geometry to fit the observed position angle data. Our fit for PSR J1513-5908 (B1509-58) in particular is useful for directly testing the magnetospheric model …
We investigate polarization of high-energy emissions from the Crab pulsar in the frame work of the outer gap accelerator, following previous works of Cheng and coworkers. The recent version of the outer gap, which extends from inside the null charge surface to the light cylinder, is used for examining the synchrotron radiations from the secondary and the tertiary pairs, which are produced outside the gap. We calculate the light curve, the spectrum and the polarization characteristics, simultaneously, by taking into account gyration motion of the particles. The polarization position angle curve…
The polarization position angles (PA) of pulsar radio emission occupy a distribution that can be much wider than what is expected from the average linear polarization and the off-pulse instrumental noise. Contrary to our limited understanding of the emission mechanism, the excess dispersion in PA implies that pulsar PAs vary in a random fashion. An eigenvalue analysis of the measured Stokes parameters is developed to determine the origin of the excess PA dispersion. The analysis is applied to sensitive, well-calibrated polarization observations of PSR B1929+10 and PSR B2020+28. The analysis cl…
We report the discovery of 70.5 ms pulsations from the X-ray source AX J1838.0-0655 using the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE). PSR J1838-0655 is a rotation-powered pulsar with spin-down luminosity Edot = 5.5e36 ergs/s, characteristic age tau = P/2Pdot = 23 kyr, and surface dipole magnetic field strength Bs = 1.9e12 G. It coincides with an unresolved INTEGRAL source and the extended TeV source HESS J1837-069. At an assumed distance of 6.6 kpc by association with an adjacent massive star cluster, the efficiency of PSR J1838-0655 converting spin-down luminosity to radiation is 0.8% for the 2-1…
The Stokes parameters of the pulsed synchrotron radiation produced in the striped pulsar wind model are computed and compared with optical observations of the Crab pulsar. We assume the main contribution to the wind emissivity comes from a thin transition layer where the dominant toroidal magnetic field reverses its polarity. The radial component of the field is neglected, but a small meridional component is added. The resulting radiation is linearly polarized (Stokes V=0). In the off-pulse region, the electric vector lies in the direction of the projection on the sky of the rotation axis of t…
