Pulsed optical emission from Geminga
Astrophysics
2007-05-23 v1
Abstract
We present optical data which shows that G", the optical counterpart of the gamma-ray pulsar Geminga, pulses in B with a period of 0.237 seconds. The similarity between the optical pulse shape and the gamma-ray light curve indicates that a large fraction of the optical emission is non-thermal in origin - contrary to recent suggestions based upon the total optical flux. The derived magnitude of the pulsed emission is m_B = 26.0 +/- 0.4. Whilst it is not possible to give an accurate figure for the pulsed fraction (due to variations in the sky background) we can give an upper limit of m_B ~ 27 for the unpulsed fraction.
Cite
@article{arxiv.astro-ph/9802225,
title = {Pulsed optical emission from Geminga},
author = {A. Shearer and A. Golden and S. Harfst and R. Butler and R. M. Redfern and C. M. O'Sullivan and G. M. Beskin and S. I. Neizvestny and V. V. Neustroev and V. L. Plokhotnichenko and M. Cullum and A. Danks},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/9802225},
year = {2007}
}
Comments
5 pages, 3 figures, Latex, submitted to A&A