CONSTRAINING THE OPTICAL EMISSION FROM THE DOUBLE PULSAR SYSTEM J0737-3039

Journal Article · Tue Apr 10 00:00:00 EDT 2012 · Astrophysical Journal

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-637X/749/1/84· OSTI ID:22020450

Ferraro, F R; Pallanca, C; Dalessandro, E; Lanzoni, B ^[1]; Mignani, R P ^[2]; Pellizzoni, A; Possenti, A; Burgay, M; D'Amico, N ^[3]; Camilo, F ^[4]; Lyne, A G; Kramer, M ^[5]; Manchester, R N ^[6]

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1. Dipartimento di Astronomia, Universita degli Studi di Bologna, via Ranzani 1, I-40127 Bologna (Italy)
2. Mullard Space Science Laboratory, University College London, Holmbury St. Mary, Dorking, Surrey, RH5 6NT (United Kingdom)
3. INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Cagliari, localita Poggio dei Pini, Strada 54, I-09012 Capoterra (Italy)
4. Columbia Astrophysics Laboratory, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027 (United States)
5. Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics, School of Physics and Astronomy, The University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PL (United Kingdom)
6. CSIRO Astronomy and Space Science, Australia Telescope National Facility, P.O. Box 76, Epping NSW 1710 (Australia)

We present the first optical observations of the unique system J0737-3039 (composed of two pulsars, hereafter PSR-A and PSR-B). Ultra-deep optical observations, performed with the High Resolution Camera of the Advanced Camera for Surveys on board the Hubble Space Telescope, could not detect any optical emission from the system down to m{sub F435W} = 27.0 and m{sub F606W} = 28.3. The estimated optical flux limits are used to constrain the three-component (two thermal and one non-thermal) model recently proposed to reproduce the XMM-Newton X-ray spectrum. They suggest the presence of a break at low energies in the non-thermal power-law component of PSR-A and are compatible with the expected blackbody emission from the PSR-B surface. The corresponding efficiency of the optical emission from PSR-A's magnetosphere would be comparable to that of other Myr-old pulsars, thus suggesting that this parameter may not dramatically evolve over a timescale of a few Myr.

• OSTI ID: 22020450
• Journal Information: Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 749, Issue 1; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0004-637X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

79 ASTROPHYSICS
COSMOLOGY AND ASTRONOMY
CAMERAS
PHOTON EMISSION
PULSARS
RESOLUTION
STARS
TELESCOPES
X-RAY SPECTRA