Shocks, Outflows and Bubbles: New Views on Pulsars and their Winds
Abstract
A typical young pulsar slows down at an imperceptible rate, its spin period increasing by less than 10 microseconds over the course of a year. However, the inertia of a pulsar is so extreme that to effect this tiny change in rotation rate, the star must dissipate about 10^46 ergs of kinetic energy. Observations of pulsars and their surroundings demonstrate that this ``spin-down energy'' is expelled into the pulsar's surroundings in spectacular fashion, in the form of a relativistic wind of charged particles and magnetic fields. In this review I highlight some recent observational results on pulsar winds at radio, X-ray and optical wavelengths, and explain what we can learn from these data about shock structure, particle acceleration and the interstellar medium.
Cite
@article{arxiv.astro-ph/0303427,
title = {Shocks, Outflows and Bubbles: New Views on Pulsars and their Winds},
author = {Bryan M. Gaensler},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/0303427},
year = {2017}
}
Comments
8 pages, 4 embedded EPS figures, uses ws-procs9x6.cls. To appear in proceddings of "Texas in Tuscany" (XXI Symposium on Relativistic Astrophysics)