Realistic modeling of the pulse profile of PSR J0737-3039A

B. B. P. Perera, C. Kim, M. A. McLaughlin, R. D. Ferdman, M. Kramer, I. H. Stairs, P. C. C. Freire, A. Possenti

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9 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

The Double Pulsar, PSR J0737-3039A/B, is a unique system in which both neutron stars have been detected as radio pulsars. As shown in Ferdman et al., there is no evidence for pulse profile evolution of the A pulsar, and the geometry of the pulsar was fit well with a double-pole circular radio beam model. Assuming a more realistic polar cap model with a vacuum retarded dipole magnetosphere configuration including special relativistic effects, we create synthesized pulse profiles for A given the best-fit geometry from the simple circular beam model. By fitting synthesized pulse profiles to those observed from pulsar A, we constrain the geometry of the radio beam, namely the half-opening angle and the emission altitude, to be similar to 30 degrees and similar to 10 neutron star radii, respectively. Combining the observational constraints of PSR J0737-3039A/B, we are able to construct the full three-dimensional orbital geometry of the Double Pulsar. The relative angle between the spin axes of the two pulsars (Delta(S)) is estimated to be similar to(138 degrees +/- 5 degrees) at the current epoch and will likely remain constant until tidal interactions become important in similar to 85 Myr, at merger.

Original languageEnglish
Article number51
Number of pages8
JournalAstrophysical Journal
Volume787
Issue number1
Early online date2 May 2014
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 20 May 2014
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • general binaries
  • general pulsars
  • neutron stars

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