From: LARRY KLAES (ljk4_at_msn.com)
Date: Tue Nov 22 2005 - 06:38:10 PST
Paper: astro-ph/0511587
Date: Sat, 19 Nov 2005 10:13:14 GMT (166kb)
Title: Transient radio bursts from rotating neutron stars
Authors: M. A. McLaughlin, A. G. Lyne, D. R. Lorimer, M. Kramer, A. J.
Faulkner, R. N. Manchester, J. M. Cordes, F. Camilo, A. Possenti, I. H.
Stairs, G. Hobbs, N. D'Amico, M. Burgay & J. T. O'Brien
Comments: 10 pages, 4 figures. Accepted by Nature
\\
The `radio sky' is relatively unexplored for transient signals, although
the
potential of radio-transient searches is high, as demonstrated recently by
the
discovery of a previously unknown type of source which varies on timescales
of
minutes to hours. Here we report a new large-scale search for radio sources
varying on much shorter timescales. This has revealed 11 objects
characterized
by single, dispersed bursts having durations between 2 and 30 ms. The
average
time intervals between bursts range from 4 minutes to 3 hours, with radio
emission typically detectable for < 1 s per day. From an analysis of the
burst
arrival times, we have identified periodicities in the range 0.4 - 7 s for
ten
of the 11 sources, suggesting a rotating neutron star origin. Despite the
small
number of sources presently detected, their ephemeral nature implies a total
Galactic population which significantly exceeds that of the regularly
pulsing
radio pulsars. Five of the ten sources have periods greater than 4 s, and
period derivatives have been measured for three of the sources, with one
having
a very high inferred magnetic field of 5e13 G, suggesting that this new
population is related to other classes of isolated neutron stars observed at
X-ray and gamma-ray wavelengths.
\\ ( http://arXiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0511587 , 166kb)
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