1998/02/17 by A. Shearer, Shearer, A., A. Golden +21
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysics (astro-ph) #FOS: Physical sciences #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.astro-ph/9802225
5 pages, 3 figures, Latex, submitted to A&A
arxiv created 1998/02/17 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01
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 mB = 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 mB ~ 27 for the unpulsed fraction.