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Register a new userThe Braking Index of a Radio-quiet Gamma-ray Pulsar
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We report the discovery and timing measurements of PSR J1208-6238, a young and highly magnetized gamma-ray pulsar, with a spin period of 440 ms. The pulsar was discovered in gamma-ray photon data from the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) during a blind-search survey of unidentified LAT sources, running on the distributed volunteer computing system Einstein@Home. No radio pulsations were detected in dedicated follow-up searches with the Parkes radio telescope, with a flux density upper limit at 1369 MHz of 30 $mu$Jy. By timing this pulsars gamma-ray pulsations, we measure its braking index over five years of LAT observations to be $n = 2.598 pm 0.001 pm 0.1$, where the first uncertainty is statistical and the second estimates the bias due to timing noise. Assuming its braking index has been similar since birth, the pulsar has an estimated age of around 2,700 yr, making it the youngest pulsar to be found in a blind search of gamma-ray data and the youngest known radio-quiet gamma-ray pulsar. Despite its young age the pulsar is not associated with any known supernova remnant or pulsar wind nebula. The pulsars inferred dipolar surface magnetic field strength is $3.8 times 10^{13}$ G, almost 90% of the quantum-critical level. We investigate some potential physical causes of the braking index deviating from the simple dipole model but find that LAT data covering a longer time interval will be necessary to distinguish between these.
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Millisecond pulsars (MSPs) are old neutron stars that spin hundreds of times per second and appear to pulsate as their emission beams cross our line of sight. To date, radio pulsations have been detected from all rotation-powered MSPs. In an attempt to discover radio-quiet gamma-ray MSPs, we used the aggregated power from the computers of tens of thousands of volunteers participating in the Einstein@Home distributed computing project to search for pulsations from unidentified gamma-ray sources in Fermi Large Area Telescope data. This survey discovered two isolated MSPs, one of which is the only known rotation-powered MSP to remain undetected in radio observations. These gamma-ray MSPs were discovered in completely blind searches without prior constraints from other observations, raising hopes for detecting MSPs from a predicted Galactic bulge population.
We present a phase-coherent timing solution for PSR J1640-4631, a young 206 ms pulsar using X-ray timing observations taken with NuSTAR. Over this timing campaign, we have measured the braking index of PSR J1640-4631 to be n = 3.15+/-0.03. Using a series of simulations, we argue that this unusually high braking index is not due to timing noise, but is intrinsic to the pulsars spin-down. We cannot, however, rule out contamination due to an unseen glitch recovery, although the recovery timescale would have to be longer than most yet observed. If this braking index is eventually proven to be stable, it demonstrates that pulsar braking indices greater than 3 are allowed in nature, hence other physical mechanisms such as mass or magnetic quadrupoles are important in pulsar spin-down. We also present a 3-sigma upper limit on the pulsed flux at 1.4 GHz of 0.018 mJy.
Prompted by the Fermi LAT discovery of a radio-quiet gamma-ray pulsar inside the CTA 1 supernova remnant, we obtained a 130 ks XMM-Newton observation to assess the timing behavior of this pulsar. Exploiting both the unprecedented photon harvest and the contemporary Fermi LAT timing measurements, a 4.7 sigma single peak pulsation is detected, making PSR J0007+7303 the second example, after Geminga, of a radio-quiet gamma-ray pulsar also seen to pulsate in X-rays. Phase-resolved spectroscopy shows that the off-pulse portion of the light curve is dominated by a power-law, non-thermal spectrum, while the X-ray peak emission appears to be mainly of thermal origin, probably from a polar cap heated by magnetospheric return currents, pointing to a hot spot varying throughout the pulsar rotation.
We have analyzed the new deep {it XMM-Newton} and {it Chandra} observations of the energetic radio-quiet pulsar J1813$-$1246. The X-ray spectrum is non-thermal, very hard and absorbed. Based on spectral considerations, we propose that J1813 is located at a distance further than 2.5 kpc. J1813 is highly pulsed in the X-ray domain, with a light curve characterized by two sharp, asymmetrical peaks, separated by 0.5 in phase. We detected no significant X-ray spectral changes during the pulsar phase. We extended the available {it Fermi} ephemeris to five years. We found two glitches. The $gamma$-ray lightcurve is characterized by two peaks, separated by 0.5 in phase, with a bridge in between and no off-pulse emission. The spectrum shows clear evolution in phase, being softer at the peaks and hardenning towards the bridge. The X-ray peaks lag the $gamma$-ray ones by 0.25 in phase. We found a hint of detection in the 30-500 keV band with {it INTEGRAL} IBIS/ISGRI, that is consistent with the extrapolation of both the soft X-ray and $gamma$-ray emission of J1813. The peculiar X and $gamma$-ray phasing suggests a singular emission geometry. We discuss some possibilities within the current pulsar emission models. Finally, we develop an alternative geometrical model where the X-ray emission comes from polar cap pair cascades.
The low braking-index pulsar PSR J1734$-$3333 could be born with superhigh internal magnetic fields $B_{rm in}sim10^{15}-10^{16}$ G, and undergo a supercritical accretion soon after its formation in a supernova explosion. The buried multipole magnetic fields will merger into a dipole magnetic field. Since the magnetic flow transfers from the core to the crust of the pulsar, its surface dipole field grows quickly at a power-law form assumed until it saturates at the level of internal dipole field. The increase in surface dipole magnetic field results in the observed low braking index of $n=0.9(2)$. Keeping an average field growth index $varepsilon=1.34(6)$, this pulsar will become a magnetar with surface dipole magnetic field at the equator $B_{rm d}sim 2.6(1)times 10^{14}$,G and $sim 5.3(2)times 10^{14}$,G after next 50,kyrs and 100,kys, respectively.
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