2000/11/30 by F. Hulleman, M. H. van Kerkwijk, S. R. Kulkarni · 10 citations
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Physics and Astronomy · #Accretion (finance) #Accretion disc #Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations #Earth Systems and Cosmic Evolution #Field (mathematics) #High-energy astronomy #Magnetic field #Millisecond pulsar #Pulsar #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #Supernova #Wavelength #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1038/35047024
published as Nature 408, 689 · 16 pages, 3 figures, accepted by Nature. Press embargo until 1900 hrs London time (GMT) on 6 December 2000
arxiv created 2000/11/30 · openalex publication_date 2000/12/01 · arxiv updated 2016/03/23 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
The energy source of the anomalous X-ray pulsars is not well understood, hence their designation as anomalous. Unlike binary X-ray pulsars, no companions are seen, so the energy cannot be supplied by accretion of matter from a companion star. The loss of rotational energy, which powers radio pulsars, is insufficient to power AXPs. Two models are generally considered: accretion from a large disk left over from the birth process, or decay of a very strong magnetic field (1015 G) associated with a 'magnetar'. The lack of counterparts at other wavelengths has hampered progress in our understanding of these objects. Here, we present deep optical observations of the field around 4U 0142+61, which is the brightest AXP in X-rays. We find an object with peculiar optical colours at the position of the X-ray source, and argue that it is the optical counterpart. The optical emission is too faint to admit the presence of a large accretion disk, but may be consistent with magnetospheric emission from a magnetar.