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Optical pulsars and polarimetry

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 June 2018

Andrew Shearer  and
Eoin O’ Connor
Andrew Shearer
Affiliation:
Centre for Astronomy, School of Physics, NUI Galway Galway, Ireland email: andy.shearer@nuigalway.ie
Eoin O’ Connor
Affiliation:
Centre for Astronomy, School of Physics, NUI Galway Galway, Ireland email: andy.shearer@nuigalway.ie
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Abstract

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Despite the early optical detection of the Crab pulsar in 1969, optical pulsars have become the poor cousin of the neutron star family. Only five normal pulsars have been observed to pulse in the optical waveband. A further three magnetars/SGRs have been detected in the optical/near IR. Optical pulsars are intrinsically faint with a first order luminosity, predicted by Pacini, to be proportional to P−10, where P is the pulsar’s period. Consequently they require both large telescopes, generally over-subscribed, and long exposure times, generally difficult to get. However optical observations have the benefit that polarisation and spectral observations are possible compared to X-ray and gamma-ray observations where polarisation measurements are limited. Over the next decade the number of optical pulsars should increase as optical detectors approach 100% quantum efficiency and as we move into the era of extremely large telescopes where limiting fluxes will be 30 to 100 times fainter compared to existing optical telescopes.

Keywords

stars: neutron(stars:) pulsars: general(stars:) pulsars: individual (Crab, Vela, Geminga, B0540-69, B0656+14)polarization
Type
Contributed Papers
Information
Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union , Volume 13 , Symposium S337: Pulsar Astrophysics the Next Fifty Years , September 2017 , pp. 191 - 194
Copyright
Copyright © International Astronomical Union 2018 

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