Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics
Scientific paper
Apr 2002
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2002aps..aprn17028r&link_type=abstract
American Physical Society, April Meeting, Jointly Sponsored with the High Energy Astrophysics Division (HEAD) of the American As
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
Scientific paper
We have monitored the stable pulsar B1509-58 in the 2-100 keV X-ray band with RXTE for six years, since the start of that mission in January 1996. The X-ray pulse lags the radio pulse by 0.30 +/- 0.01 in phase and there is no indication of this lag's depending on energy. We have derived a single X-ray timing ephemeris that fits the entire monitoring period, using a quintic polynomial. The timing residuals exhibit a periodic behavior with amplitude between 4 and 5 ms. This, in itself, might point to the existence of a planetary system. However, solid confirmation and an orbital period are hard to obtain because it is extremely difficult to separate the sinusoidal components from the polynomial due to the long orbital period. This pulsar is stable, but fitting its timing over long time ranges requires the higher orders in the polynomial. Those, in turn, cause features that are hard to distinguish from true sinusoids with periods of 800 to 900 days. Nevertheless, we remain confident that we will soon be able to produce reliable parameters for the first planetary system discovered through X-ray observations. This research was supported by NASA Grant NAG5-7335.
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