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Register a new userDetection of Pulsed X-ray Emission from The Fastest Millisecond Pulsar PSR B1937+21 with ASCA
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We have detected pulsed X-ray emission from the fastest millisecond pulsar known, PSR B1937+21 (P=1.558 msec), with ASCA. The pulsar is detected as a point source above $sim 1.7$ keV, with no indication of nebulosity. The source flux in the 2--10 keV band is found to be $f = (3.7pm 0.6) times 10^{-13}$ erg s$^{-1}$ cm$^{-2}$, which implies an isotropic luminosity of $L_{rm x} = 4 pi D^2 f sim (5.7pm 1.0) times 10^{32} ~(D/3.6 {rm kpc})^2$ erg s$^{-1}$, where D is the distance, and an X-ray efficiency of $sim 5 times 10^{-4}$ relative to the spin-down power of the pulsar. The pulsation is found at the period predicted by the radio ephemeris with a very narrow primary peak, the width of which is about 1/16 phase ($sim 100 mu$s), near the time resolution limit ($61 mu$s) of the observation. The instantaneous flux in the primary peak (1/16 phase interval) is found to be ($4.0pm 0.8) times 10^{-12}$ erg s$^{-1}$ cm$^{-2}$. Although there is an indication for the secondary peak, we consider its statistical significance too low to claim a definite detection. The narrow pulse profile and the detection in the 2--10 keV band imply that the X-ray emission is caused by the magnetospheric particle acceleration. Comparison of X-ray and radio arrival times of pulses indicates, within the timing errors, that the X-ray pulse is coincident with the radio interpulse.
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Cyclic spectroscopy is a signal processing technique that was originally developed for engineering applications and has recently been introduced into the field of pulsar astronomy. It is a powerful technique with many attractive features, not least of which is the explicit rendering of information about the relative phases in any filtering imposed on the signal, thus making holography a more straightforward proposition. Here we present methods for determining optimum estimates of both the filter itself and the statistics of the unfiltered signal, starting from a measured cyclic spectrum. In the context of radio pulsars these quantities tell us the impulse response of the interstellar medium and the intrinsic pulse profile. We demonstrate our techniques by application to 428 MHz Arecibo data on the millisecond pulsar B1937+21, obtaining the pulse profile free from the effects of interstellar scattering. As expected, the intrinsic profile exhibits main- and inter-pulse components that are narrower than they appear in the scattered profile; it also manifests some weak, but sharp features that are revealed for the first time at low frequency. We determine the structure of the received electric-field envelope as a function of delay and Doppler-shift. Our delay-Doppler image has a high dynamic-range and displays some pronounced, low-level power concentrations at large delays. These concentrations imply strong clumpiness in the ionized interstellar medium, on AU size-scales, which must adversely affect the timing of B1937+21.
Pulsating thermal X-ray emission from millisecond pulsars can be used to obtain constraints on the neutron star equation of state, but to date only five such sources have been identified. Of these five millisecond pulsars, only two have well constrained neutron star masses, which improve the determination of the radius via modelling of the X-ray waveform. We aim to find other millisecond pulsars that already have well constrained mass and distance measurements that show pulsed thermal X-ray emission in order to obtain tight constraints on the neutron star equation of state. The millisecond pulsar PSR~J1909--3744 has an accurately determined mass, M = 1.54$pm$0.03 M$_odot$ (1 $sigma$ error) and distance, D = 1.07$pm$0.04 kpc. We analysed {em XMM-Newton} data of this 2.95 ms pulsar to identify the nature of the X-ray emission. We show that the X-ray emission from PSR~J1909--3744 appears to be dominated by thermal emission from the polar cap. Only a single component model is required to fit the data. The black-body temperature of this emission is kT=0.26ud{0.03}{0.02} keV and we find a 0.2--10 keV un-absorbed flux of 1.1 $times$ 10$^{-14}$ erg cm$^{-2}$ s$^{-1}$ or an un-absorbed luminosity of 1.5 $times$ 10$^{30}$ erg s$^{-1}$. Thanks to the previously determined mass and distance constraints of the neutron star PSR~J1909--3744, and its predominantly thermal emission, deep observations of this object with future X-ray facilities should provide useful constraints on the neutron star equation of state.
We report the discovery of phase shifts between X-ray pulses at different energies in the newly discovered millisecond (ms) X-ray pulsar SAX J1808.4-3658. The results show that low-energy pulses lag high-energy pulses by as much as $sim$0.2 ms (or $sim$8% of the pulse period). The measurements were made in two different ways: (1) computing cross power spectra between different energy bands, and (2) cross-correlating the folded pulse profiles in different energy bands; consistent results were obtained. We speculate that the observed soft lags might be related to the lateral expansion and subsequent cooling of a ``hot spot on the neutron star surface in which the pulsed X-ray emission originates. Also presented is the possibility of producing soft lags via Compton down scattering of hard X-ray photons from the hot spot in the cool surrounding atmosphere. We will discuss possible X-ray production mechanisms for SAX J1808.4-3658 and constraints on the emission environment, based on the observed soft lags, pulse profiles, and energy spectrum.
We present the results of a BeppoSAX observation of the fastest rotating pulsar known: PSR B1937+21. The ~200 ks observation (78.5 ks MECS/34 ks LECS on-source time) allowed us to investigate with high statistical significance both the spectral properties and the pulse profile shape. The pulse profile is clearly double peaked at energies > ~4 keV. Peak widths are compatible with the instrumental time resolution and the second pulse lags the main pulse 0.52 in phase, like is the case in the radio. In the 1.3-4 keV band we detect a ~45% DC component; conversely the 4-10 keV pulsed fraction is consistent with 100%. The on-pulse spectrum is fitted with an absorbed power-law of spectral index ~1.2, harder than that of the total flux which is ~1.9. The total unabsorbed (2-10 keV) flux is F_{2-10} = 4.1 10^-13 cgs, implying a luminosity of L_X = 5.0 10^31 Theta (d/3.6 kpc)^2 erg s^-1 and a X-ray efficiency of eta = 4.5 10^-5 Theta, where Theta is the solid angle spanned by the emission beam. These results are in agreement with those obtained by ASCA and a more recent Rossi-XTE observation. The hydrogen column density N_H ~2 10^22 cm^-2 is ~10 times higher than expected from the radio dispersion measure and average Galactic density of e-. Though it is compatible (within 2sigma) with the Galactic (HI derived) value of ~1 10^22 cm^-2, inspection of dust extinction maps reveal that the pulsar falls in a highly absorbed region. In addition, 1.4 GHz radio map shows that the nearby (likely unrelated) HII source 4C21.53W is part of a circular emission region ~4 across.
We report results on the timing and spectral analysis of observations of the millisecond pulsar PSR B1821-24 with RXTE, BeppoSAX and Chandra. The X-ray light curve is characterized by two narrow peaks at a phase distance of 0.452+/-0.002. The average pulsed emission, over the range 1.6-20 keV, is well represented by a single power law with a photon index alpha=1.30 +0.05 -0.02 and unabsorbed (2-10 keV) pulsed X-ray flux of 3.9x10^(-13) erg cm^(-2) s^(-1). We searched for a possible bunching of X-ray photons to verify if the X ray emission has a time structure similar to that of giant pulses and found a negative result.
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