Transformation of a star into a planet in a millisecond pulsar binary

Millisecond pulsars are thought to be neutron stars that have been spun-up by accretion of matter from a binary companion. Although most are in binary systems, some 30% are solitary, and their origin is therefore mysterious. PSR J1719-1438, a 5.7-millisecond pulsar, was detected in a recent survey with the Parkes 64-meter radio telescope. We show that this pulsar is in a binary system with an orbital period of 2.2 hours. The mass of its companion is near that of Jupiter, but its minimum density of 23 grams per cubic centimeter suggests that it may be an ultralow-mass carbon white dwarf. This system may thus have once been an ultracompact low-mass x-ray binary, where the companion narrowly avoided complete destruction.     

Observational properties of pulsars

Pulsars are remarkable clocklike celestial sources that are believed to be rotating neutron stars formed in supernova explosions. They are valuable tools for investigations into topics such as neutron star interiors, globular cluster dynamics, the structure of the interstellar medium, and gravitational physics. Searches at radio and x-ray wavelengths over the past 5 years have resulted in a large increase in the number of known pulsars and the discovery of new populations of pulsars, posing challenges to theories of binary and stellar evolution. Recent images at radio, optical, and x-ray wavelengths have revealed structures resulting from the interaction of pulsar winds with the surrounding interstellar medium, giving new insights into the physics of pulsars.     

Spin-down of radio millisecond pulsars at genesis

Millisecond pulsars are old neutron stars that have been spun up to high rotational frequencies via accretion of mass from a binary companion star. An important issue for understanding the physics of the early spin evolution of millisecond pulsars is the impact of the expanding magnetosphere during the terminal stages of the mass-transfer process. Here, I report binary stellar evolution calculations that show that the braking torque acting on a neutron star, when the companion star decouples from its Roche lobe, is able to dissipate >50% of the rotational energy of the pulsar. This effect may explain the apparent difference in observed spin distributions between x-ray and radio millisecond pulsars and help account for the noticeable age discrepancy with their young white dwarf companions.     

An eccentric binary millisecond pulsar in the galactic plane

Binary pulsar systems are superb probes of stellar and binary evolution and the physics of extreme environments. In a survey with the Arecibo telescope, we have found PSR J1903+0327, a radio pulsar with a rotational period of 2.15 milliseconds in a highly eccentric (e = 0.44) 95-day orbit around a solar mass (M(middle dot in circle)) companion. Infrared observations identify a possible main-sequence companion star. Conventional binary stellar evolution models predict neither large orbital eccentricities nor main-sequence companions around millisecond pulsars. Alternative formation scenarios involve recycling a neutron star in a globular cluster, then ejecting it into the Galactic disk, or membership in a hierarchical triple system. A relativistic analysis of timing observations of the pulsar finds its mass to be 1.74 +/- 0.04 M solar symbol, an unusually high value.     

The physics of neutron stars

Neutron stars are some of the densest manifestations of massive objects in the universe. They are ideal astrophysical laboratories for testing theories of dense matter physics and provide connections among nuclear physics, particle physics, and astrophysics. Neutron stars may exhibit conditions and phenomena not observed elsewhere, such as hyperon-dominated matter, deconfined quark matter, superfluidity and superconductivity with critical temperatures near 10(10) kelvin, opaqueness to neutrinos, and magnetic fields in excess of 10(13) Gauss. Here, we describe the formation, structure, internal composition, and evolution of neutron stars. Observations that include studies of pulsars in binary systems, thermal emission from isolated neutron stars, glitches from pulsars, and quasi-periodic oscillations from accreting neutron stars provide information about neutron star masses, radii, temperatures, ages, and internal compositions.     

An x-ray nebula associated with the millisecond pulsar B1957+20

We have detected an x-ray nebula around the binary millisecond pulsar B1957+20. A narrow tail, corresponding to the shocked pulsar wind, is seen interior to the known Halpha bow shock and proves the long-held assumption that the rotational energy of millisecond pulsars is dissipated through relativistic winds. Unresolved x-ray emission likely represents the shock where the winds of the pulsar and its companion collide. This emission indicates that the efficiency with which relativistic particles are accelerated in the postshock flow is similar to that for young pulsars, despite the shock proximity and much weaker surface magnetic field of this millisecond pulsar.     

The Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope discovers the pulsar in the young galactic supernova remnant CTA 1

Energetic young pulsars and expanding blast waves [supernova remnants (SNRs)] are the most visible remains after massive stars, ending their lives, explode in core-collapse supernovae. The Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope has unveiled a radio quiet pulsar located near the center of the compact synchrotron nebula inside the supernova remnant CTA 1. The pulsar, discovered through its gamma-ray pulsations, has a period of 316.86 milliseconds and a period derivative of 3.614 x 10(-13) seconds per second. Its characteristic age of 10(4) years is comparable to that estimated for the SNR. We speculate that most unidentified Galactic gamma-ray sources associated with star-forming regions and SNRs are such young pulsars.     

Magnetar-like emission from the young pulsar in Kes 75

We report the detection of magnetar-like x-ray bursts from the young pulsar PSR J1846-0258, at the center of the supernova remnant Kes 75. This pulsar, long thought to be exclusively rotation-powered, has an inferred surface dipolar magnetic field of 4.9 x 10(13) gauss, which is higher than those of the vast majority of rotation-powered pulsars, but lower than those of the approximately 12 previously identified magnetars. The bursts were accompanied by a sudden flux increase and an unprecedented change in timing behavior. These phenomena lower the magnetic and rotational thresholds associated with magnetar-like behavior and suggest that in neutron stars there exists a continuum of magnetic activity that increases with inferred magnetic field strength.     

A radio pulsar spinning at 716 Hz

We have discovered a 716-hertz eclipsing binary radio pulsar in the globular cluster Terzan 5 using the Green Bank Telescope. It is the fastest spinning neutron star found to date, breaking the 24-year record held by the 642-hertz pulsar B1937+21. The difficulty in detecting this pulsar, because of its very low flux density and high eclipse fraction (approximately 40% of the orbit), suggests that even faster spinning neutron stars exist. If the pulsar has a mass less than twice the mass of the Sun, then its radius must be constrained by the spin rate to be <16 kilometers. The short period of this pulsar also constrains models that suggest that gravitational radiation, through an r-mode (Rossby wave) instability, limits the maximum spin frequency of neutron stars.     

Absorption features in the x-ray spectrum of an ordinary radio pulsar

The vast majority of known nonaccreting neutron stars (NSs) are rotation-powered radio and/or γ-ray pulsars. So far, their multiwavelength spectra have all been described satisfactorily by thermal and nonthermal continuum models, with no spectral lines. Spectral features have, however, been found in a handful of exotic NSs and were thought to be a manifestation of their unique traits. Here, we report the detection of absorption features in the x-ray spectrum of an ordinary rotation-powered radio pulsar, J1740+1000. Our findings bridge the gap between the spectra of pulsars and other, more exotic, NSs, suggesting that the features are more common in the NS spectra than they have been thought so far.     

Pulse structure of four pulsars

The pulse structure of the four known pulsars is given. The pulse is about 38 milliseconds for the two pulsars of longest period, and within the pulsewidth three subpulses typically appear. The pulsar of next longest period typically radiates two pulses separated about 23 milliseconds in time. The one short-period pulsar emits single pulses of constant shape. The first subpulses of all pulsars have nearly the same shape. The shape of the first subpulse agrees well with the pulse shape expected from a radio-emitting sphere which is excited by a spherically expanding disturbance, and in which the radio emission, once excited, decays exponentially.     

Binary stars

Most stars in the solar neighborhood are either double or multiple systems. They provide a unique opportunity to measure stellar masses and radii and to study many interesting and important phenomena. The best candidates for black holes are compact massive components of two x-ray binaries: Cygnus X-1 and LMC X-3. The binary radio pulsar PSR 1913 + 16 provides the best available evidence for gravitational radiation. Accretion disks and jets observed in close binaries offer a very good testing ground for models of active galactic nuclei and quasars.     

The formation and fragmentation of disks around primordial protostars

The very first stars to form in the universe heralded an end to the cosmic dark ages and introduced new physical processes that shaped early cosmic evolution. Until now, it was thought that these stars lived short, solitary lives, with only one extremely massive star, or possibly a very wide binary system, forming in each dark-matter minihalo. Here we describe numerical simulations that show that these stars were, to the contrary, often members of tight multiple systems. Our results show that the disks that formed around the first young stars were unstable to gravitational fragmentation, possibly producing small binary and higher-order systems that had separations as small as the distance between Earth and the Sun.     

Binary interaction dominates the evolution of massive stars

The presence of a nearby companion alters the evolution of massive stars in binary systems, leading to phenomena such as stellar mergers, x-ray binaries, and gamma-ray bursts. Unambiguous constraints on the fraction of massive stars affected by binary interaction were lacking. We simultaneously measured all relevant binary characteristics in a sample of Galactic massive O stars and quantified the frequency and nature of binary interactions. More than 70% of all massive stars will exchange mass with a companion, leading to a binary merger in one-third of the cases. These numbers greatly exceed previous estimates and imply that binary interaction dominates the evolution of massive stars, with implications for populations of massive stars and their supernovae.     

Interstellar Scattering of Pulsar Radiation and Its Effect on the Spectrum of NP0532

Angular scattering in the interstellar medium results in multipath dispersion which can amount to more than one pulse period for pulsars of short period and high dispersion measure. The dispersion, if operative, imposes on the pulsation flux a cutoff inversely proportional to the fourth power of the observing wavelength. The low-frequency pulse shape of pulsar NP0532 suggests that this pulsar is subject to such scattering and that the observed low-frequency cutoff in the apparent spectrum is not an intrinsic property of the pulsar. In fact, there is evidence that NP0532 may be identified as the compact, low-frequency source in the Crab Nebula and that the pulsar may radiate in accordance with its high-frequency spectrum down to frequencies as low as 10 megahertz, although the periodic time variations are suppressed by the scattering below 100 megahertz.     

Two gamma-ray sources and ancient guest stars

On the basis of the fact that the youngest neutron stars such as the Crab pulsar and the Vela pulsar emit strong gamma-ray radiation, it is suggested that a few gamma-ray sources may be identified with young compact sources formed in the events of guest stars. Two such sources, 2CG 353+16 and 2CG 054+01, are identified with guest stars observed in the 14th century B.C. and A.D. 1230, respectively.     

A brown dwarf mass donor in an accreting binary

A long-standing and unverified prediction of binary star evolution theory is the existence of a population of white dwarfs accreting from substellar donor stars. Such systems ought to be common, but the difficulty of finding them, combined with the challenge of detecting the donor against the light from accretion, means that no donor star to date has a measured mass below the hydrogen burning limit. We applied a technique that allowed us to reliably measure the mass of the unseen donor star in eclipsing systems. We were able to identify a brown dwarf donor star, with a mass of 0.052 +/- 0.002 solar mass. The relatively high mass of the donor star for its orbital period suggests that current evolutionary models may underestimate the radii of brown dwarfs.     

Observation of pulsed gamma-rays above 25 GeV from the Crab pulsar with MAGIC

One fundamental question about pulsars concerns the mechanism of their pulsed electromagnetic emission. Measuring the high-end region of a pulsar's spectrum would shed light on this question. By developing a new electronic trigger, we lowered the threshold of the Major Atmospheric gamma-ray Imaging Cherenkov (MAGIC) telescope to 25 giga-electron volts. In this configuration, we detected pulsed gamma-rays from the Crab pulsar that were greater than 25 giga-electron volts, revealing a relatively high cutoff energy in the phase-averaged spectrum. This indicates that the emission occurs far out in the magnetosphere, hence excluding the polar-cap scenario as a possible explanation of our measurement. The high cutoff energy also challenges the slot-gap scenario.     

A double-pulsar system: a rare laboratory for relativistic gravity and plasma physics

The clocklike properties of pulsars moving in the gravitational fields of their unseen neutron-star companions have allowed unique tests of general relativity and provided evidence for gravitational radiation. We report here the detection of the 2.8-second pulsar J0737-3039B as the companion to the 23-millisecond pulsar J0737-3039A in a highly relativistic double neutron star system, allowing unprecedented tests of fundamental gravitational physics. We observed a short eclipse of J0737-3039A by J0737-3039B and orbital modulation of the flux density and the pulse shape of J0737-3039B, probably because of the influence of J0737-3039A's energy flux on its magnetosphere. These effects will allow us to probe magneto-ionic properties of a pulsar magnetosphere.