A geometrical analysis of the gamma-ray light curves of pulsars.
Abstract
In the light curves of the COS-B gamma-ray pulsars, some common features are clearly recognizable; two main peaks always occur, and the intervening phase lag has not the natural value of 0.5. An interpretation is proposed which only involves a simplified geometrical description of the emission pattern, viz. two opposite hollow cones with a first-order asymmetry with respect to their common axis; this makes it possible to explain any observed phase difference in terms of the cone angle, and the angles from the line of sight and the magnetic axis to the spin axis. It is shown that phase separations different from 0.5 can be obtained in a canonical dipolar emission model if simple assumptions on the geometry of the radiation pattern are made. There is evidence favoring wide fan beams rather than narrow pencil beams, and this should have obvious consequences for future pulsar models
- Publication:
-
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
- Pub Date:
- December 1979
- DOI:
- 10.1093/mnras/189.4.823
- Bibcode:
- 1979MNRAS.189..823M
- Keywords:
-
- Gamma Ray Astronomy;
- Light Curve;
- Pulsars;
- Cos-B Satellite;
- Pencil Beams;
- Probability Distribution Functions;
- Spaceborne Astronomy;
- Astrophysics