Production and evolution of millisecond X-ray and radio pulsars
Abstract
Observations using the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer have discovered dozens of accreting neutron stars with millisecond spin periods in low-mass binary star systems. Eighteen are millisecond X-ray pulsars powered by accretion or nuclear burning or both. These stars have magnetic fields strong enough for them to become millisecond rotation-powered (radio) pulsars when accretion ceases. Few, if any, accretion- or rotation-powered pulsars have spin rates higher than 750 Hz. There is strong evidence that the spin-up of some accreting neutron stars is limited by magnetic spin equilibrium whereas the spin-up of others is halted when accretion ends. Further study will show whether the spin rates of some accretion- or rotation-powered pulsars are or were limited by emission of gravitational radiation.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.astro-ph/0611309,
title = {Production and evolution of millisecond X-ray and radio pulsars},
author = {Frederick K. Lamb},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/0611309},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
13 pages, 1 figure, to appear in Spectra and Timing of Compact X-ray Binaries, ed. P. Ghosh, & E.P.J. van den Heuvel, Advances in Space Research (Elsevier Science) [doi:10.1016/j.asr.2006.08.003], in press (2006)