Anomalous X-ray pulsar

Anomalous X-ray Pulsars (AXPs) are now widely believed to be magnetars—young, isolated, highly magnetized neutron stars. These energetic X-ray pulsars are characterized by slow rotation periods of ~2–12 seconds and large magnetic fields of ~10¹³–10¹⁵ gauss (1 to 100 gigateslas). There are currently (as of 2009) 9 known and 1 candidate AXPs. The identification of AXPs with magnetars was motivated by their similarity to another enigmatic class of sources, the soft gamma repeaters.

A list of AXP candidates and their estimated rotation period in seconds, as of 2003, follows:
AXP 1E 2259+586	6.98
AXP 1E 1048-59	6.45
AXP 4U 0142+61	8.69
AXP 1RXS 1708-40	11.0
AXP 1E 1841-045	11.8
AXP AXJ1844-0258	6.97
AXP CXJ0110-7211	5.44
Please note that the second, fourth, and last names were abbreviated

References

• Chryssa Kouveliotou, Robert C. Duncan, and Christopher Thompson, "Magnetars," Scientific American, Feb. 2003, p. 41 (PDF)

External links

• Meissner Effect in Quark Stars (University of Calgary)
• "Magnetars" (Paper from a March 1995 conference proceedings, with first use of the term "AXP" and suggestion that AXPs are magnetars.)