A NEW ACCRETION DISK AROUND THE MISSING LINK BINARY SYSTEM PSR J1023+0038
- Leiden Observatory, Leiden University, P.O. Box 9513, NL-2300 RA Leiden (Netherlands)
- ASTRON, the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy, Postbus 2, 7990 AA Dwingeloo (Netherlands)
- Columbia Astrophysics Laboratory, Columbia University, 550 West 120th Street, New York, NY 10027 (United States)
- Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics, School of Physics and Astronomy, The University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PL (United Kingdom)
- McGill University, 3600 University Street, Montreal, QC H3A 2T8 (Canada)
- Space Radiation Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, 1200 E California Blvd, MC 249-17, Pasadena, CA 91125 (United States)
PSR J1023+0038 is an exceptional system for understanding how slowly rotating neutron stars are spun up to millisecond rotational periods through accretion from a companion star. Observed as a radio pulsar from 2007-2013, optical data showed that the system had an accretion disk in 2000/2001. Starting at the end of 2013 June, the radio pulsar has become undetectable, suggesting a return to the previous accretion-disk state, where the system more closely resembles an X-ray binary. In this Letter we report the first targeted X-ray observations ever performed of the active phase and complement them with UV/optical and radio observations collected in 2013 October. We find strong evidence that indeed an accretion disk has recently formed in the system and we report the detection of fast X-ray changes spanning about two orders of magnitude in luminosity. No radio pulsations are seen during low flux states in the X-ray light curve or at any other times.
- OSTI ID:
- 22364036
- Journal Information:
- Astrophysical Journal Letters, Vol. 781, Issue 1; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 2041-8205
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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