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Astronomy

Heartbeats of a neutron star

Nature volume 424, pages 27–28 (2003)Cite this article

Different oscillations in the flux of X-rays emitted from a neutron star now seem to be linked to the frequency at which the star is spinning. That spin rate in turn hints at what the interior of such a star is made of.

Chakrabarty et al.2 provide strong evidence that the final frequency of brightness oscillations during bursts of X-rays (thought to be produced by thermonuclear explosions on the surface of the neutron star) and the frequency of another persistent, coherent signal can both be identified with the rate of rotation, or spin frequency, of the neutron star. Wijnands et al.3 report the discovery of twin quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs) in the kilohertz range, and the difference between their frequencies is very close to half the spin frequency. Such QPOs are believed to be produced within the gas orbiting above the neutron star's surface, but no models have predicted this relationship to its spin.

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Figure 1: A neutron star and its inner accretion disk.

References

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  1. the Department of Physics, Stanford University, Stanford, 94305-4060, California, USA

    Robert V. Wagoner

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  1. Robert V. Wagoner
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Correspondence to Robert V. Wagoner.

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Wagoner, R. Heartbeats of a neutron star. Nature 424, 27–28 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/424027a

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