Publication Date:
2004-07-17
Description:
Isolated neutron stars are seen in x-rays through their nonthermal and/or surface thermal emissions. X-ray Multimirror Mission-Newton observations of the Geminga pulsar show a 43-electron volt spectrum from the whole neutron star surface, as well as a power-law component above 2 kiloelectron volts. In addition, we have detected a hot (170 electron volts) thermal emission from an approximately 60-meter-radius spot on the pulsar's surface. Such a thermal emission, only visible at selected phase intervals, may be coming from polar hot spot(s), long thought to exist as a result of heating from magnetospheric accelerated particles. It may provide the missing link between the x-ray and gamma-ray emission of the pulsar.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Caraveo, P A -- De Luca, A -- Mereghetti, S -- Pellizzoni, A -- Bignami, G F -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2004 Jul 16;305(5682):376-9.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Istituto di Astrofisica Spaziale e Fisica Cosmica, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Via Bassini, 15-20133 Milano, Italy. pat@mi.iasf.cnr.it〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15256666" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
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Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
