A ROSAT view of Millisecond Pulsars
Abstract
Satellite based observatories like ROSAT, ASCA and EUVE has brought an important progress for the neutron star and pulsar astronomy. With a significant larger collecting area and higher sensitivity compared to previous X-ray satellites they allowed for the first time to detect X-ray emission from objects as faint as millisecond pulsars. At present, seven millisecond pulsars are detected at X-ray energies. In the talk we will summarize the observations and present new results from a re-analysis of archival ROSAT data, including follow-up observations of the nearby and bright millisecond pulsar PSR J0437-4715 with the ROSAT Position Sensitive Proportional Counter (PSPC) and Hight Resolution Imager (HRI). We further will report on recent HRI observations of PSR J2124-3358 and show that it is the first solitary galactic millisecond pulsar detected at X-ray energies and outside the radio channel. Its pulse profile shows evidence for a double peak structure and appears similar in terms of pulse width, shape and the number of pulse components to the pulsar's radio profile observed at 430 MHz. Finally we will briefly discuss the X-ray efficiency of millisecond pulsars and show that the close correlation between the pulsar's spin-down energy dot{E} and the observed X-ray luminosity together with the measured power-law spectra and pulse profiles suggests a magnetospheric (non-thermal) origin for the bulk of the observed X-rays from millisecond pulsars.
- Publication:
-
Joint European and National Astronomical Meeting
- Pub Date:
- 1997
- Bibcode:
- 1997jena.confE.250B