English

PSR J1840-1419: A very cool neutron star

Solar and Stellar Astrophysics 2015-06-12 v1 High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena

Abstract

We present upper limits on the X-ray emission for three neutron stars. For PSR J1840-1419, with a characteristic age of 16.5 Myr, we calculate a blackbody temperature upper limit (at 99% confidence) of kTbb<2410+17kT_{\mathrm{bb}}^{\infty}<24^{+17}_{-10} eV, making this one of the coolest neutron stars known. PSRs J1814-1744 and J1847-0130 are both high magnetic field pulsars, with inferred surface dipole magnetic field strengths of 5.5×10135.5\times10^{13} and 9.4×10139.4\times10^{13} G, respectively. Our temperature upper limits for these stars are kTbb<12333+20kT_{\mathrm{bb}}^{\infty}<123^{+20}_{-33} eV and kTbb<11533+16kT_{\mathrm{bb}}^{\infty}<115^{+16}_{-33} eV, showing that these high magnetic field pulsars are not significantly hotter than those with lower magnetic fields. Finally, we put these limits into context by summarizing all temperature measurements and limits for rotation-driven neutron stars.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1301.2814,
  title  = {PSR J1840-1419: A very cool neutron star},
  author = {E. F. Keane and M. A. McLaughlin and M. Kramer and B. W. Stappers and C. G. Bassa and M. B. Purver and P. Weltevrede},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1301.2814},
  year   = {2015}
}

Comments

accepted for publication in ApJ, 5 pages, 1 figure, 1 table