TY - JOUR
T1 - Determining the rotation direction in pulsars
AU - Gueroult, Renaud
AU - Shi, Yuan
AU - Rax, Jean Marcel
AU - Fisch, Nathaniel J.
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported in part by NNSA Grant No. DE-NA0002948. Y. Shi’s work was performed, in part, under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under Contract DE-AC52-07NA27344 and was supported by the Lawrence Fellowship through LLNL-LDRD Program under Project No. 19-ERD-038.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019, The Author(s).
PY - 2019/12/1
Y1 - 2019/12/1
N2 - Pulsars are rotating neutron stars emitting lighthouse-like beams. Owing to their unique properties, pulsars are a unique astrophysical tool to test general relativity, inform on matter in extreme conditions, and probe galactic magnetic fields. Understanding pulsar physics and emission mechanisms is critical to these applications. Here we show that mechanical-optical rotation in the pulsar magnetosphere affects polarisation in a way which is indiscernible from Faraday rotation in the interstellar medium for typical GHz observations frequency, but which can be distinguished in the sub-GHz band. Besides being essential to correct for possible systematic errors in interstellar magnetic field estimates, this result offers a unique means to determine the rotation direction of pulsars, providing additional constraints on magnetospheric physics. With the ongoing development of sub-GHz observation capabilities, our finding promises discoveries, such as the spatial distribution of pulsars rotation directions, which could exhibit potentially interesting, but presently invisible, correlations or features.
AB - Pulsars are rotating neutron stars emitting lighthouse-like beams. Owing to their unique properties, pulsars are a unique astrophysical tool to test general relativity, inform on matter in extreme conditions, and probe galactic magnetic fields. Understanding pulsar physics and emission mechanisms is critical to these applications. Here we show that mechanical-optical rotation in the pulsar magnetosphere affects polarisation in a way which is indiscernible from Faraday rotation in the interstellar medium for typical GHz observations frequency, but which can be distinguished in the sub-GHz band. Besides being essential to correct for possible systematic errors in interstellar magnetic field estimates, this result offers a unique means to determine the rotation direction of pulsars, providing additional constraints on magnetospheric physics. With the ongoing development of sub-GHz observation capabilities, our finding promises discoveries, such as the spatial distribution of pulsars rotation directions, which could exhibit potentially interesting, but presently invisible, correlations or features.
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U2 - 10.1038/s41467-019-11243-4
DO - 10.1038/s41467-019-11243-4
M3 - Article
C2 - 31324810
AN - SCOPUS:85069493340
SN - 2041-1723
VL - 10
JO - Nature Communications
JF - Nature Communications
IS - 1
M1 - 3232
ER -