The surprising Crab pulsar and its nebula: a review

2013/09/30 by R. Bühler, Rolf Buehler, R. D. Blandford +1 · 12 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomy #Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations #Astrophysics #Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena #Context (archaeology) #Crab Nebula #Crab Pulsar #Flux (metallurgy) #Nebula #Physics #Pulsar #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #Stars #astro-ph.HE

paper · pdf · doi:10.1088/0034-4885/77/6/066901

Review for Reports on Progress in Physics, 31 pages, 11 figures. For a video abstract see the journal web page of the article or http://bcove.me/391e37dv

openalex publication_date 2014/06/01 · arxiv created 2014/06/13 · arxiv updated 2014/06/16 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05

Abstract

The Crab nebula and its pulsar (referred to together as 'the Crab') have historically played a central role in astrophysics. True to this legacy, several unique discoveries have been made recently. The Crab was found to emit gamma-ray pulsations up to energies of 400 GeV, beyond what was previously expected from pulsars. Strong gamma-ray flares, of durations of a few days, were discovered from within the nebula, while the source was previously expected to be stable in flux on these time scales. Here we review these intriguing and suggestive developments. In this context we give an overview of the observational properties of the Crab and our current understanding of pulsars and their nebulae.

Citations

• Spatial Variation of the X‐Ray Spectrum of the Crab Nebula
• High‐Altitude Emission from Pulsar Slot Gaps: The Crab Pulsar
• Polarimetric Properties of the Crab Pulsar between 1.4 and 8.4 GHz
• Discovery of Powerful Gamma-Ray Flares from the Crab Nebula
• Remarks on Super-Novae and Cosmic Rays
• WHEN A STANDARD CANDLE FLICKERS
• The MAXI Mission on the ISS: Science and Instruments for Monitoring All-Sky X-Ray Images
• The termination shock in a striped pulsar wind
• Far-infrared and submillimetre observations of the Crab nebula
• The Evolution and Structure of Pulsar Wind Nebulae
• Non-thermal emission from relativistic MHD simulations of pulsar wind nebulae: from synchrotron to inverse Compton
• The Neutron Star Zoo
• The ATNF Pulsar Catalogue

Cited by

• Inductive Spikes in the Crab Nebula: A Theory of γ-Ray Flares
• Hitomi X-ray studies of giant radio pulses from the Crab pulsar
• Thermal synchrotron radiation from RRMHD simulations of the double tearing mode reconnection – application to the Crab flares
• Radiative Magnetic Reconnection in Astrophysics
• Future X-ray Polarimetry of Relativistic Accelerators: PWNe and SNRs
• Gamma-ray flux depressions of the Crab Nebula in the high-energy range
• Pitch-Angle Anisotropy Controls Particle Acceleration and Cooling in Radiative Relativistic Plasma Turbulence
• Evolution of three-dimensional relativistic current sheets and development of self-generated turbulence
• Cosmic Ray Origins: An Introduction
• The Energy-dependent γ-Ray Morphology of the Crab Nebula Observed with the Fermi Large Area Telescope
• Gamma-ray haloes around pulsars as the key to understanding cosmic-ray transport in the Galaxy
• Magnetic Field Saturation of the Ion Weibel Instability in Interpenetrating Relativistic Plasmas

Related

• The variable Crab Nebula
• The Pulsar in the Crab Nebula
• The Crab Pulsar and Nebula as seen in gamma-rays
• Discovery of Powerful Gamma-Ray Flares from the Crab Nebula
• Inductive spikes and gamma-ray flares from the Crab Nebula