TY - JOUR
T1 - Ultraviolet emission from the millisecond pulsar J0437-4715
AU - Kargaltsev, Oleg
AU - Pavlov, George G.
AU - Romani, Roger W.
N1 - Copyright:
Copyright 2015 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2004/2/10
Y1 - 2004/2/10
N2 - We observed PSR J0437-4715 with the FUV-MAMA detector of the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrometer (STIS) to measure the pulsar's spectrum and pulsations. For the first time, UV emission from a millisecond pulsar has been detected. The measured flux, (2.0 ± 0.2) × 10-15 ergs s-1 cm-2 in the 1150-1700 Å range, corresponds to the luminosity LFUV = (4.7 ± 0.5) × 1027 ergs s-1, for the distance of 140 pc and negligible interstellar extinction. The shape of the observed spectrum suggests thermal emission from the neutron star surface with a surprisingly high temperature of about 1 × 105 K, above the upper limit on the surface temperature of the younger "ordinary" pulsar J0108-1431. For the few-Gigayear-old J0437-4715, such a temperature requires a heating mechanism to operate. The spectrum of J0437-4715 shows marginal evidence of an emission line at 1372 Å, which might be a gravitationally redshifted Zeeman component of the hydrogen Lyα line in a magnetic field of ∼7 × 108 G. No pulsations are detected, with a 3 σ upper limit of 50% on the pulsed fraction.
AB - We observed PSR J0437-4715 with the FUV-MAMA detector of the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrometer (STIS) to measure the pulsar's spectrum and pulsations. For the first time, UV emission from a millisecond pulsar has been detected. The measured flux, (2.0 ± 0.2) × 10-15 ergs s-1 cm-2 in the 1150-1700 Å range, corresponds to the luminosity LFUV = (4.7 ± 0.5) × 1027 ergs s-1, for the distance of 140 pc and negligible interstellar extinction. The shape of the observed spectrum suggests thermal emission from the neutron star surface with a surprisingly high temperature of about 1 × 105 K, above the upper limit on the surface temperature of the younger "ordinary" pulsar J0108-1431. For the few-Gigayear-old J0437-4715, such a temperature requires a heating mechanism to operate. The spectrum of J0437-4715 shows marginal evidence of an emission line at 1372 Å, which might be a gravitationally redshifted Zeeman component of the hydrogen Lyα line in a magnetic field of ∼7 × 108 G. No pulsations are detected, with a 3 σ upper limit of 50% on the pulsed fraction.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=1842483564&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=1842483564&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1086/380993
DO - 10.1086/380993
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:1842483564
VL - 602
SP - 327
EP - 335
JO - Astrophysical Journal
JF - Astrophysical Journal
SN - 0004-637X
IS - 1 I
ER -