Open AccessA magnetopause in the double‐pulsar binary system
Author(s) -
GrahamSmith Francis,
McLaughlin Maura Ann
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
astronomy & geophysics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.168
H-Index - 22
eISSN - 1468-4004
pISSN - 1366-8781
DOI - 10.1046/j.1468-4004.2003.46123.x
Subject(s) - magnetopause , pulsar , binary number , physics , binary pulsar , astronomy , astrophysics , magnetosphere , millisecond pulsar , mathematics , plasma , nuclear physics , arithmetic
One of the holy grails of pulsar astronomy was realized last year with the discovery of a double neutron-star binary system in which both stars are visible as radio pulsars. The stars in this highly relativistic system are in a 2.4-hour, mildly eccentric orbit and are separated by only 2.9 light seconds. The wind from one distorts the magnetosphere of the other, forming a comet-like shape similar to the terrestrial magnetosheath. In this article we describe the radio observations of this system, which illuminate the remarkable interactions between the two pulsars. We show how studying these interactions will greatly increase our understanding of pulsar energy budgets, winds and magnetospheric physics. ABSTRACT A magnetopause in the double-pulsar binary system