Towards a theory of extremely intermittent pulsars

Mottez, Fabrice; Bonazzola, S.; Heyvaerts, J.

doi:10.1051/0004-6361/201321184

Cited by 14 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…Up to now, research on very low-mass pulsar companions has led to the discovery of five planets (Wolszczan & Frail 1992;Thorsett et al 1993;Bailes et al 2011) and speculations about orbiting asteroids (Cordes & Shannon 2008;Deneva et al 2009;Shannon et al 2013;Mottez et al 2013). These objects raise a moderate interest in the field of planetology: they orbit stars that left the main sequence a long time ago (in a state that the Sun will never reach), they are exposed to the neutron star X-rays that probably prevent life from developing, they are embedded in a relativistic wind, and they are very far away from us.…”

Section: Observational Testsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It is likely that other pulsar planets remain to be discovered. Finally, asteroid belts are likely to exist around pulsars, and they have been invoked by several authors to explain timing irregularities (Shannon et al 2013), anti-glitches (Huang & Geng 2014), or burst intermittency (Cordes & Shannon 2008;Deneva et al 2009;Mottez et al 2013). In this paper we investigate the ability of these bodies immersed in a pulsar wind to produce radio waves.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

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Radio emissions from pulsar companions: a refutable explanation for galactic transients and fast radio bursts

Mottez

Zarka

2014

A&A

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Context. The six known highly dispersed fast radio bursts are attributed to extragalactic radio sources that are of unknown origin but extremely energetic. We propose here a new explanation that does not require an extreme release of energy and involves a body (planet, asteroid, white dwarf) orbiting an extragalactic pulsar. Aims. We investigate a theory of radio waves associated with such pulsar-orbiting bodies. We focus our analysis on the waves emitted from the magnetic wake of the body in the pulsar wind. After deriving their properties, we compare them with the observations of various transient radio signals to determine whether they could originate from pulsar-orbiting bodies. Methods. The analysis is based on the theory of Alfvén wings: for a body immersed in a pulsar wind, a system of two stationary Alfvén waves is attached to the body, provided that the wind is highly magnetised. When they are destabilised through plasma instabilities, Alfvén wings can be the locus of strong radio sources that are convected with the pulsar wind. By assuming a cyclotron maser instability operating in the Alfvén wings, we make predictions about the shape, frequencies, and brightness of the resulting radio emissions. Results. Because of the beaming by relativistic aberration, the signal is seen only when the companion is perfectly aligned between its parent pulsar and the observer, as is the case for occultations. For pulsar winds with a high Lorentz factor (≥10 4 ), the whole duration of the radio event does not exceed a few seconds, and it is composed of one to four peaks that last a few milliseconds each and are detectable up to distances of several Mpc. The Lorimer burst, the three isolated pulses of PSR J1928+15, and the recently detected fast radio bursts are all compatible with our model. According to it, these transient signals should repeat periodically with the companion's orbital period. Conclusions. The search of pulsar-orbiting bodies could be an exploration theme for new-or next-generation radio telescopes.

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Section: Observational Testsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Radio emissions from pulsar companions: a refutable explanation for galactic transients and fast radio bursts

Mottez

Zarka

2014

A&A

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“…Akgün et al 2006;Jones 2012) or that there may be some sort of forcing mechanism (e.g. Cordes & Shannon 2008;Rea et al 2008;Mottez et al 2013). Others have suggested that it is a chaotic (Seymour & Lorimer 2013) or Markov (Cordes 2013) process.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Two Long-Term Intermittent Pulsars Discovered in the Palfa Survey

Lyne

Stappers

Freire

et al. 2017

ApJ

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We report the discovery of two long-term intermittent radio pulsars in the ongoing Pulsar Arecibo L-band Feed Array survey. Following discovery with the Arecibo Telescope, extended observations of these pulsars over several years at Jodrell Bank Observatory have revealed the details of their rotation and radiation properties. PSRs J1910+0517 and J1929+1357 show long-term extreme bimodal intermittency, switching between active (ON) and inactive (OFF) emission states and indicating the presence of a large, hitherto unrecognized, underlying population of such objects. For PSR J1929+1357, the initial duty cycle was f ON =0.008, but two years later, this changed quite abruptly to f ON =0.16. This is the first time that a significant evolution in the activity of an intermittent pulsar has been seen, and we show that the spin-down rate of the pulsar is proportional to the activity. The spin-down rate of PSR J1929+1357 is increased by a factor of 1.8 when it is in active mode, similar to the increase seen in the other three known long-term intermittent pulsars. These discoveries increase the number of known pulsars displaying long-term intermittency to five. These five objects display a remarkably narrow range of spin-down power (Ė ∼ 10 32 erg s −1 ) and accelerating potential above their polar caps. If confirmed by further discoveries, this trend might be important for understanding the physical mechanisms that cause intermittency.

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“…A direct electromagnetic interaction between the star and its companions could then be considered. A more detailed analysis of this idea is developed in the companion paper (Mottez et al 2013).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The idea that PSRB 1931+24 could be orbited by a close swarm of asteroids is discussed in the accompanying paper (Mottez et al 2013). …”

Section: A Companion At Short Distance and A Periastron Precession Wimentioning

confidence: 99%

Towards a theory of extremely intermittent pulsars

Mottez¹,

Bonazzola²,

Heyvaerts³

2013

A&A

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Aims. We investigate whether one or many companions are orbiting the extremely intermittent pulsar PSR B1931+24. Methods. We constrained our analysis on previous observations of eight fundamental properties of PSR B1931+24. The most puzzling properties are the intermittent nature of the pulsar's activity, with active and quiet phases that alternate quasi-periodically; the variation of the slowing-down rate of its period between active and quiet phases; and because there are no timing residuals, it is highly unlikely that the pulsar has a massive companion. Here, we examine the effects that one putative companion immersed in the magnetospheric plasma or the wind of the pulsar might have, as well as the associated electric current distribution. We analysed several possibilities for the distance and orbit of this hypothetical companion and the nature of its interaction with the neutron star. Results. We show that if the quasi-periodic behaviour of PSR B1931+24 was caused by a companion orbiting the star with a period of 35 or 70 days, the radio emissions, usually considered to be those of the pulsar would in that specific case be emitted in the companion's environment. We analysed four possible configurations and conclude that none of them would explain the whole set of peculiar properties of PSR 1931+24. We furthermore considered a period of 70 days for the precession of the periastron associated to an orbit very close to the neutron star. This hypothesis is analysed in a companion paper.

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Towards a theory of extremely intermittent pulsars

Cited by 14 publications

References 18 publications

Radio emissions from pulsar companions: a refutable explanation for galactic transients and fast radio bursts

Radio emissions from pulsar companions: a refutable explanation for galactic transients and fast radio bursts

Two Long-Term Intermittent Pulsars Discovered in the Palfa Survey

Towards a theory of extremely intermittent pulsars

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