XMM-Newton Observations of the Black Widow Pulsar PSR B1957+20

Details XMM-Newton Observations of the Black Widow Pulsar PSR B1957+20 XMM-Newton Observations of the Black Widow Pulsar PSR B1957+20

2007-01-22

arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0701611v2

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

4 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in A&A Letters

Scientific paper

We report on XMM-Newton observations of the "Black Widow pulsar", PSR B1957+20. The pulsar's X-ray emission is non-thermal and best modeled with a single powerlaw spectrum of photon index 2.03(+0.51/-0.36). No coherent X-ray pulsations at the pulsar's spin-period could be detected, though a strong binary-phase dependence of the X-ray flux is observed for the first time. The data suggest that the majority of the pulsar's X-radiation is emitted from a small part of the binary orbit only. We identified this part as being near to where the radio eclipse takes place. This could mean that the X-rays from PSR B1957+20 are mostly due to intra-shock emission which is strongest when the pulsar wind interacts with the ablated material from the companion star.

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