2014/11/20 by Dimitris M. Christodoulou, Christodoulou, Dimitris M., S. Laycock +4 · 2 citations
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #FOS: Physical sciences #Geophysics and Sensor Technology #High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE) #High-pressure geophysics and materials #Quantum and Classical Electrodynamics #astro-ph.HE
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1411.5434
This paper has been withdrawn by the authors. New observations have led to a different calculation that will be presented in another paper
openalex publication_date 2014/11/20 · arxiv created 2016/06/21 · arxiv updated 2016/06/22 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Pulsations were recently detected from the ultraluminous X-ray source X-2 in M82. The newly discovered pulsar has been described as a common neutron star with a 1 TG magnetic field that accretes above the Eddington rate and as a magnetar-like pulsar with a 100 TG magnetic field that is above the quantum limit. We show here that this X-ray source is not exotic in any sense. The standard equations of accretion along field lines predict that, for the measured spin period PS and spinup rate PS, the isotropic X-ray luminosity LX must be near the Eddington limit (i.e., LX≈ 3.5× 1038~erg~s-1); and that the surface magnetic field B, that does not depend on PS, must be modest (i.e., B_*≈ 1-10 TG). The observed higher luminosity can be explained by a moderate amount of geometric beaming that occurs in our direction. Other ultraluminous X-ray sources may also turn out to be common pulsars with similar physical characteristics, but since the emission must occur at a favorable angle to the observer, we expect that very few such pulsars will be discovered in the future.