Crab Pulsar

Crab Pulsar

The Crab Nebula, which contains the Crab Pulsar. Image combines optical data from Hubble (in red) and X-ray images from Chandra (in blue). NASA/CXC/ASU/J. Hester et al.
Observation data Epoch J2000      Equinox J2000
Constellation	Taurus
Right ascension	05h 34m 31.97s
Declination	+22° 00' 52.1"'
Apparent magnitude (V)	16.5
Characteristics
Evolutionary stage	Neutron star
U−B color index	-0.45
B−V color index	+0.5
Astrometry
Proper motion (μ)	RA: -14.7±0.8 mas/yr Dec.: 2.0±0.8 mas/yr
Distance	2200 pc
Details
Mass	1.4 M☉
Radius	~1.437815 × 10-5 R☉
Luminosity	? L☉
Temperature	Center (modeled): ~3 × 108 K Surface: ~1.6 × 106 K
Rotation	33.5028583 ms
Age	958 years
Other designations
SNR G184.6-05.8, 2C 481, 3C 144.0, SN 1054A, 4C 21.19, NGC 1952, PKS 0531+219, PSR B0531+21, PSR J0534+2200, CM Tau.
Database references
SIMBAD	pulsar data

The Crab Pulsar (PSR B0531+21) is a relatively young neutron star. The star is the central star in the Crab Nebula, a remnant of the supernova SN 1054, which was widely observed on Earth in the year 1054. Discovered in 1968, the pulsar was the first to be connected with a supernova remnant.

A slow-motion movie of the Crab Pulsar taken at 800 nm wavelength using a Lucky Imaging camera from Cambridge University, showing the bright pulse and fainter interpulse.

The optical pulsar is roughly 20 km in diameter and the pulsar "beams" rotate once every 33 milliseconds, or 30 times each second. The outflowing relativistic wind from the neutron star generates synchrotron emission, which produces the bulk of the emission from the nebula, seen from radio waves through to gamma rays. The most dynamic feature in the inner part of the nebula is the point where the pulsar's equatorial wind slams into the surrounding nebula, forming a termination shock. The shape and position of this feature shifts rapidly, with the equatorial wind appearing as a series of wisp-like features that steepen, brighten, then fade as they move away from the pulsar into the main body of the nebula. The period of the pulsar's rotation is slowing by 38 nanoseconds per day due to the large amounts of energy carried away in the pulsar wind.

X-ray picture of Crab pulsar, taken by Chandra

The Crab Nebula is often used as a calibration source in X-ray astronomy. It is very bright in X-rays and the flux density and spectrum are known to be constant, with the exception of the pulsar itself. The pulsar provides a strong periodic signal that is used to check the timing of the X-ray detectors. In X-ray astronomy, 'crab' and 'millicrab' are sometimes used as units of flux density. A millicrab corresponds to a flux density of about 2.4x10⁻¹¹ erg s⁻¹ cm⁻² (2.4x10⁻¹⁴ W m⁻²) in the 2–10 keV X-ray band, for a "crab-like" X-ray spectrum, which is roughly a powerlaw in photon energy, I(E)=9.5 E^-1.1.^{[citation needed]} Very few X-ray sources ever exceed one crab in brightness.

History of observation

The Crab Nebula was identified as the remnant of SN 1054 by 1939. Astronomers then searched for the nebula's central star. There were two candidates, referred to in the literature as the "north following" and "south preceding" stars. In September 1942, Walter Baade ruled out the "north following" star, but found the evidence inconclusive for the "south preceding" star. Rudolf Minkowski, in the same issue of Astrophysical Journal as Baade, advanced spectral arguments claiming that the "evidence admits, but does not prove, the conclusion that the south preceding star is the central star of the nebula".

In late 1968, David H. Staelin and Edward C. Reifenstein III reported the discovery of two pulsating radio sources "near the crab nebula that could be coincident with it" using the 300-foot Green Bank radio antenna. They were given the designations NP 0527 and NP 0532. The period and location of the Crab Nebula pulsar NP 0532 was discovered by Richard Lovelace and collaborators November 10, 1968 at the Arecibo radio observatory.

A subsequent study by them including William D. Brundage also found that the NP 0532 source is located at the Crab Nebula. A radio source was also reported coincident with the crab nebula in late 1968 by L. I. Matveenko in Soviet Astronomy.

Optical pulsations were reported by Nather, Warner, and Macfarlane in February 1969.

Jocelyn Bell Burnell, who co-discovered the first pulsar PSR B1919+21 in 1967, relates that in the late 1950s a woman viewed the Crab Nebula source at the University of Chicago's telescope, then open to the public, and noted that it appeared to be flashing. The astronomer she spoke to, Elliot Moore, disregarded the effect as scintillation, despite the woman's protestation that as a qualified pilot she understood scintillation and this was something else. Bell Burnell notes that the 30 Hz frequency of the Crab Nebula optical pulsar is difficult for many people to see.