Related papers: Nearby, Thermally Emitting Neutron Stars
Surface thermal emission has been detected by ROSAT from four nearby young neutron stars. Assuming black body emission, the significant pulsations of the observed light curves can be interpreted as due to large surface temperature…
Confronting theoretical models with observations of thermal radiation emitted by neutron stars is one of the most important ways to understand the properties of both, superdense matter in the interiors of the neutron stars and dense…
Observations of thermal radiation from neutron stars allow one to measure the surface temperatures and confront them with cooling scenarios. Detection of gravitationally redshifted spectral lines can yield the mass-to-radius ratio. In the…
In the last few years considerable observational resources have been devoted to study the thermal emission from isolated neutron stars. Detailed XMM and Chandra observations revealed a number of features in the X-ray pulse profile, like…
Pulsars are rapidly spinning neutron stars, that radiate at the expense of their strong magnetic field and their high surface temperature. Five decades of multi-wavelength observations showed a large variety of physical parameters, such as…
The possibility for direct investigation of thermal emission from isolated neutron stars was opened about 25 years ago with the launch of the first X-ray observatory, Einstein. A significant contribution to this study was provided by ROSAT…
We review the current status of the theory of thermal emission from the surface layers of neutron stars with strong magnetic fields $B\sim 10^{10}-10^{15}$ G, including formation of the spectrum in a partially ionized atmosphere and at a…
Thermal surface emissions have now been detected from more than a dozen isolated neutron stars, including radio pulsars, radio-quiet neutron stars and magnetars. These detections can potentially provide important information on the interior…
The X-ray emission of neutron stars enables a probe of their temperatures, geometries, and magnetospheric properties. The current number of X-ray emitting pulsars is insufficient to rule out observational biases that may arise from poorly…
Neutron stars are identified as pulsars, X-ray binary components, central objects of supernovae remnants, or isolated thermally emitting sources, and at distances beyond 120 pc. A population extrapolation suggests 10$^3$ objects within that…
Observations of cooling neutron stars allow to measure photospheric radii and to constrain the equation of state of nuclear matter at high densities. In this paper we concentrate on neutron stars, which show thermal (photospheric) X-ray…
X-ray emission is a common feature of all varieties of isolated neutron stars (INS) and, thanks to the advent of sensitive instruments with good spectroscopic, timing, and imaging capabilities, X-ray observations have become an essential…
We investigate the thermal emission from magnetic neutron star surfaces in which the cohesive effects of the magnetic field have produced the condensation of the atmosphere and the external layers. This may happen for sufficiently cool…
We collate the evidence for rotation-powered neutron stars that are visible as X-ray sources and not as radio pulsars. Quantitative upper limits exist for the radio fluxes of eight objects, revealing a population at least an order of…
ROSAT has discovered a new group of isolated neutron stars characterized by soft black-body like spectra (kT ~ 50-120 eV), apparent absence of radio emission and no association with supernovae remnants. So far only six such sources are…
The most energetic neutron stars, powered by their rotation, are capable of producing pulsed radiation from the radio up to gamma rays with nearly TeV energies. These pulsars are part of the universe of energetic and powerful particle…
The group of 7 thermally emitting and radio-quiet isolated neutron stars (INSs) discovered by ROSAT constitutes a nearby population which locally appears to be as numerous as that of the classical radio pulsars. So far, attempts to enlarge…
Neutron stars are associated with diverse physical phenomena that take place in conditions characterized by ultrahigh densities as well as intense gravitational, magnetic, and radiation fields. Understanding the properties and interactions…
As a result of recent observations with ROSAT and ASCA the number of rotation-powered pulsars seen at X-ray energies has increased substantially. In this paper we review the phenomenology of the observed X-ray emission properties. At…
X-ray observations of middle-aged pulsars allow one to study nonthermal radiation from pulsar magnetospheres and thermal radiation from neutron star (NS) surfaces. In particular, from the analysis of thermal radiation one can infer the…