Type
Article
Keywords
pulsars: general
Abstract
We review our case for strong observational evidence for a relationship between the direction of a pulsar’s motion and its rotation axis. The information comes from calibrated polarization data for 20 pulsars which display linearly polarized emission from the pulse longitude at closest approach to the magnetic pole. Of these 20 pulsars, 10 show an offset in the angle between the velocity vector and the polarisation position angle which is either less than 10◦ or more than 80◦ , a fraction which is very unlikely by random chance. We believe that the bimodal nature of the distribution arises from the presence of orthogonal polarisation modes in the pulsar radio emission. In some cases this orthogonal ambiguity is resolved by observations at other wavelengths so that we conclude that the velocity vector and the rotation axis are aligned at birth. Strengthening the case is the fact that 4 of the 5 pulsars with ages less than 3 Myr show this relationship, including the Vela pulsar.
Language
English
Department(s)
Physics and Astronomy
Journal or Book Title
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Publication Year
2005
DOI
10.1111/j.1365-2966.2005.09669.x
Publisher
Wiley-Blackwell
Rights Management
Carleton College does not own the copyright to this work and the work is available through the Carleton College Library following the original publisher policies regarding self-archiving. For more information on the copyright status of this work, refer to the current copyright holder.
RoMEO Color
Yellow
Preprint Archiving
Yes
Postprint Archiving
Yes (with publisher permission, 0-24 month embaro depending on journal)
Publisher PDF Archiving
No
Paid OA Option
Yes
Contributing Organization
Carleton College
Format
application/pdf
Recommended Citation
Johnston, Simon, G. Hobbs, S. Vigeland, M. Kramer, J. M. Weisberg, and A. G. Lyne., "Evidence for Alignment of the Rotation and Velocity Vectors in Pulsars". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, vol. 6, no. , 2005. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2966.2005.09669.x. . [Online]. Accessed via Faculty Work. Physics and Astronomy. Carleton Digital Commons. https://digitalcommons.carleton.edu/phys_faculty/6
The definitive version is available at https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2966.2005.09669.x
