2013/08/12 by Iwona Mochol, J. G. Kirk, John G. Kirk · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomy #Astrophysics #Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena #Binary pulsar #Classical mechanics #Compton scattering #Context (archaeology) #Electron #Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope #Galaxy #Gamma-ray bursts and supernovae #Lorentz factor #Luminosity #Millisecond pulsar #Nuclear physics #Optics #Photon #Physics #Pulsar #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #Radiative transfer #Superluminal motion #Very-long-baseline interferometry #astro-ph.HE
paper · pdf · doi:10.1088/0004-637x/776/1/40
minor revisions, accepted for publication in ApJ
arxiv created 2013/08/12 · openalex publication_date 2013/09/24 · arxiv updated 2015/06/16 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/06
We analyze the damping of strong, superluminal electromagnetic waves by radiation reaction and Compton drag in the context of pulsar winds. The associated radiation signature is found by estimating the efficiency and the characteristic radiation frequencies. Applying these estimates to the gamma-ray binary containing PSR B1259−63, we show that the GeV flare observed by the Fermi Large Area Telescope can be understood as inverse-Compton emission by particles scattering photons from the companion star, if the pulsar wind termination shock acquires a precursor of superluminal waves roughly 30 days after periastron. This requirement constrains the mass-loading factor of the wind , where L is the luminosity and is the rate of loss of electrons and positrons, to be roughly 6 × 10 4 .