The Binary System Containing the Pulsar PSR 1913+16 and Ultra-Violet and X-Radiation from Accreting Magnetic White Dwarfs.
Abstract
Ways of determining the nature of the companion to the pulsar PSR 1913+16 from observations of the pulsar's orbit and the slow rate of the orbit's precession are discussed. Geometric constraints require that the companion be a black hole, a neutron star, a white dwarf, or a helium-main sequence star. A uniform, geometrically thin slab was used to approximate the post-shock region and determine the physical conditions behind the shock when matter from a companion star falls into a white dwarf. The emitted spectrum is also determined for a range of stellar masses, magnetic fields, and accretion rates. Analytic fits to cyclotron spectra from mildly relativistic plasmas over a frequency range from one to eighty times the cyclotron frequency are calculated and derived. Observations of hard and soft X-rays are used to determine the mass and magnetic field of a star and its accretion rate. X-ray observations of AM Her, SS Cyg, and U Gem are discussed.
- Publication:
-
Ph.D. Thesis
- Pub Date:
- December 1978
- Bibcode:
- 1978PhDT........13M
- Keywords:
-
- Physics: Astronomy and Astrophysics;
- Binary Stars;
- Pulsars;
- Stellar Radiation;
- Ultraviolet Astronomy;
- White Dwarf Stars;
- X Ray Astronomy;
- Black Body Radiation;
- Bremsstrahlung;
- Cyclotron Frequency;
- Relativistic Plasmas;
- Stellar Mass Accretion;
- Astronomy