* Astronomy

Title: Discovery of X-ray Pulsation from the Geminga-like Pulsar PSR J2021+4026
Authors: L. C. C. Lin (1), C. Y. Hui (2), C. P. Hu (3), J. H. K. Wu (4), R. H. H. Huang (4), L. Trepl (5), J. Takata (6), K. A. Seo (2), Y. Wang (6), Y. Chou (3), K. S. Cheng (6) ((1) China Medical University, (2) Chungnam National University, (3) National Central University, (4) National Tsing-Hua University, (5) Universitaet Jena, (6) The University of Hong Kong)

We report the discovery of X-ray periodicity of ~265.3 ms from a deep XMM-Newton observation of the radio-quiet gamma-ray pulsar, PSR J2021+4026, located at the edge of the supernova remnant G78.2+2.1 (gamma-Cygni).The detected frequency is consistent with the gamma-ray pulsation determined by the observation of Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope at the same epoch. The X-ray pulse profile resembles the modulation of hot spot on the surface of the neutron star. The phase-averaged spectral analysis also suggests that the majority of the observed X-rays have a thermal origin. This is the third member in the class of radio-quiet pulsars with the significant pulsations detected from both X-rays and gamma-ray regimes.

Read more (57kb, PDF)