2007/02/22 by F. Camilo, J. E. Reynolds, J. Reynolds +4 · 4 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations #Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1086/516630
Accepted for publication in ApJ Letters. Six pages with 4 figures
arxiv created 2007/02/22 · openalex publication_date 2007/03/14 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/31
We have used the Parkes radio telescope to study the polarized emission from the anomalous X-ray pulsar XTE J1810-197 at frequencies of 1.4, 3.2, and 8.4 GHz. We find that the pulsed emission is nearly 100% linearly polarized. The position angle of linear polarization varies gently across the observed pulse profiles, varying little with observing frequency or time, even as the pulse profiles have changed dramatically over a period of 7 months. In the context of the standard pulsar "rotating vector model," there are two possible interpretations of the observed position angle swing coupled with the wide profile. In the first, the magnetic and rotation axes are substantially misaligned and the emission originates high in the magnetosphere, as seen for other young radio pulsars, and the beaming fraction is large. In the second interpretation, the magnetic and rotation axes are nearly aligned, and the line of sight remains in the emission zone over almost the entire pulse phase. We deprecate this possibility because of the observed large modulation of thermal X-ray flux. We have also measured the Faraday rotation caused by the Galactic magnetic field, RM = +77 rad m -2 , implying an average magnetic field component along the line of sight of 0.5 μG.