Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2brh9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T04:42:07.976Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Optical Polarization Measurements of Pulsars

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 April 2016

Stefan J. Wagner  and
W. Seifert
Stefan J. Wagner
Affiliation:
Landessternwarte Heidelberg, Königstuhl, 69171 Heidelberg, Germany
W. Seifert
Affiliation:
Landessternwarte Heidelberg, Königstuhl, 69171 Heidelberg, Germany

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

We investigate the polarization characteristics of optical emission from young pulsars. In a first attempt we search for polarization in images without time resolution in order to select suitable candidates for time-resolved studies. Polarization information constrains the nature of the faint optical emission of pulsars and will eventually allow to derive the topology of the field in those areas were optical radiation is emitted. We determine the polarization of the time-integrated optical emission of the SMC pulsar B0540-69 and the Vela pulsar B0833-45. We identify a new candidate optical counterpart for the young pulsar B1509-58 and find that the old candidate is unpolarized. The polarization of these three sources is rather high in view of the assumption that averaging over a putative swing of the polarization angle through 180 degrees will lead to depolarisation in the pulse-averaged signal.

We also detect high degrees of polarization in the synchrotron nebula surrounding the LMC pulsar B0540-69, indicating even further similarity to the Crab.

Type
Part 4. Optical Observations
Information
International Astronomical Union Colloquium , Volume 177: Pulsar Astronomy - 2000 and Beyond , 2000 , pp. 315 - 318
Copyright
Copyright © Astronomical Society of the Pacific 2000

References

Caraveo, P. et al., 1992 ApJ, 395, L103 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Caraveo, P. et al., 1994 ApJ, 423, L125 Google Scholar
Chanan, G.A. & Helfand, D.J. 1990 ApJ, 352, 167 Google Scholar
Chanan, G.A. et al., 1984 ApJ, 287, L23 Google Scholar
Chakrabarty, D. & Kaspi, V.M., 1998, ApJ 498, L37 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gaenseler, B. et al., 1999, MNRAS, 305, 724 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hill, R.J. et al., 1997, ApJ 486, L 99 Google Scholar
Lasker, B. 1976, ApJ, 203, 193 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Manchester, R.N. et al., 1980, MNRAS, 190, 9PGoogle Scholar
Middleditch, J. et al., 1987, ApJ, 315, 142 Google Scholar
Mignani, R.P. et al., 1998, Messenger, 94, 25 Google Scholar
Nasuti, F.P. et al., 1997, A&A, 323, 839 Google Scholar
Shearer, A. et al., 1994, ApJ, 423, L51 Google Scholar
Shearer, A. et al., 1998, A&A, 333, L16 Google Scholar
Wallace, P.T. et al., 1977, Nature, 266, 692 Google Scholar