Albert Einstein Institute | Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics | 2017 Jan 11
[c][attachment=0]13PulsarsFermiLAT.jpg[/attachment][/c][hr][/hr]An analysis that would have taken more than a thousand years on a single computer has found within one year more than a dozen new rapidly rotating neutron stars in data from the Fermi gamma-ray space telescope. With computing power donated by volunteers from all over the world an international team led by researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics in Hannover, Germany, searched for tell-tale periodicities in 118 Fermi sources of unknown nature. In 13 they discovered a rotating neutron star at the heart of the source. While these all are – astronomically speaking – young with ages between tens and hundreds of thousands of years, two are spinning surprisingly slow – slower than any other known gamma-ray pulsar. Another discovery experienced a “glitch”, a sudden change of unknown origin in its otherwise regular rotation.
“We discovered so many new pulsars for three main reasons: the huge computing power provided by Einstein@Home; our invention of novel and more efficient search methods; and the use of newly-improved Fermi-LAT data. These together provided unprecedented sensitivity for our large survey of more than 100 Fermi catalog sources,” says Dr. Colin Clark, lead author of the paper now published in The Astrophysical Journal.
Neutron stars are compact remnants from supernova explosions and consists of exotic, extremely dense matter. They measure about 20 kilometers across and weigh as much as half a million Earths. Because of their strong magnetic fields and fast rotation they emit beamed radio waves and energetic gamma rays similar to a cosmic lighthouse. If these beams point towards Earth once or twice per rotation, the neutron star becomes visible as a pulsating radio or gamma-ray source – a so-called pulsar. ...
The Einstein@Home Gamma-ray Pulsar Survey. I. Search Methods,
Sensitivity and Discovery of New Young Gamma-ray Pulsars - C. J. Clark et al
- Astrophysical Journal 834(2):106 (10 Jan 2017) DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/834/2/106
arXiv.org > astro-ph > arXiv:1611.01015 > 03 Nov 2016 (v1), 09 Jan 2017 (v2)
