{"id":1086,"date":"2018-10-11T10:53:52","date_gmt":"2018-10-11T09:53:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mub.eps.manchester.ac.uk\/in-abstract\/?p=1086"},"modified":"2019-02-06T11:04:45","modified_gmt":"2019-02-06T11:04:45","slug":"lofar-discovery-of-a-radio-pulsar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mub.eps.manchester.ac.uk\/in-abstract\/lofar-discovery-of-a-radio-pulsar\/","title":{"rendered":"LOFAR Discovery of a 23.5 s Radio Pulsar"},"content":{"rendered":"

The slowest spinning radio pulsar known.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Pulsars are rapidly rotating neutron stars that emit beams of electromagnetic radiation from their magnetic poles. They are born when a massive star explodes in a supernova that leaves behind a dense core, of mainly neutrons, with a diameter of around 20 kilometres.<\/p>\n

Researchers at the University of Manchester and the Netherlands discovered a radio pulsar which rotates just once every 23.5s. This was a surprise as it spins almost 3 times slower than the previous slowest. This constrains the theory of how these objects produce radio emission as it was expected to be radio quiet. Finding these slow-spinning pulsars is very challenging so this discovery suggests that there may be many more, affecting our understanding of how many pulsars there are in the galaxy.<\/p>\n

Some models suggest that this pulsar evolved from a Magnetar, a pulsar with a magnetic field strength 100-1000 times larger than pulsars. If that is the case, heating of the pulsar surface by the decay of the magnetic field should be visible in X-rays. So far we have not been able to detect this, but using more sensitive observations will reveal if this is a feasible model for the formation of this theory challenging source.<\/p>\n

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