Optical polarisation of the Crab pulsar: precision measurements and comparison to the radio emission

Abstract

The linear polarisation of the Crab pulsar and its close environment was derived from observations with the high-speed photo-polarimeter OPTIMA at the 2.56-m Nordic Optical Telescope in the optical spectral range (400 - 750 nm). Time resolution as short as 11 microseconds, which corresponds to a phase interval of 1/3000 of the pulsar rotation, and high statistics allow the derivation of polarisation details never achieved before. The degree of optical polarisation and the position angle correlate in surprising details with the light curves at optical wavelengths and at radio frequencies of 610 and 1400 MHz. Our observations show that there exists a subtle connection between presumed non-coherent (optical) and coherent (radio) emissions. This finding supports previously detected correlations between the optical intensity of the Crab and the occurrence of giant radio pulses. Interpretation of our observations require more elaborate theoretical models than those currently available in the literature.

arXiv comment21 pages, 13 figures, uses AMS.sty, mn2e.cls, mn2e.bst and natbib.sty, submitted to MNRAS

References in corpus (22)

• The ATNF Pulsar Catalogue
• $\gamma$-Ray Pulsars: Emission Zones and Viewing Geometries
• The Crab Nebula and Pulsar between 500 GeV and 80 TeV: Observations with the HEGRA stereoscopic air Cherenkov telescopes
• Two-Pole Caustic Model for High-Energy Lightcurves of Pulsars
• Observation of Pulsed Gamma-rays Above 25 GeV from the Crab Pulsar with MAGIC
• Polarization of the Crab pulsar and nebula as observed by the Integral/IBIS telescope
• Fitting Pulsar Wind Tori. II. Error Analysis and Applications
• Enhanced Optical Emission During Crab Giant Radio Pulses
• Polarization of high-energy pulsar radiation in the striped wind model
• Absolute Timing of the Crab Pulsar with RXTE
• Polarimetric Properties of the Crab Pulsar between 1.4 and 8.4 GHz
• Phase-resolved Crab Studies with a Cryogenic TES Spectrophotometer
• Polarization of high-energy emissions from the Crab pulsar
• Absolute timing with IBIS, SPI and JEM-X aboard INTEGRAL
• Absolute polarisation position angle profiles of southern pulsars at 1.4 and 3.1 GHz
• Simultaneous Absolute Timing of the Crab Pulsar at Radio and Optical Wavelengths
• Optical Pulse-Phased Photopolarimetry of PSR B0656+14
• The Optical Polarisation of the Vela Pulsar revisited
• Proper Motion of the Crab Pulsar Revisited
• The Infrared to Gamma-Ray Pulse Shape of the Crab Nebula Pulsar
• Unpulsed UBV Optical Emission from the Crab Pulsar
• Interpretation of the Low-Frequency Peculiarities in the Radio Profile Structure of the Crab Pulsar

Cited by in corpus (52)

• Fermi Large Area Telescope Observations of the Crab Pulsar and Nebula
• The surprising Crab pulsar and its nebula: A review
• A search for optical bursts from the repeating fast radio burst FRB 121102
• Polarimetric evidence of a white dwarf pulsar in the binary system AR Scorpii
• The Crab Pulsar at Centimeter Wavelengths II: Single Pulses
• Theory of pulsar magnetosphere and wind
• Radio Emission Physics in the Crab Pulsar
• The Crab Pulsar at Centimeter Wavelengths: I. Ensemble Characteristics
• Optical Polarimetry of the Inner Crab Nebula and Pulsar
• The HU Aqr planetary system hypothesis revisited
• Optical, ultraviolet, and infrared observations of isolated neutron stars
• The pulsar synchrotron in 3D: curvature radiation
• Polarimetry of cosmic gamma-ray sources above e+e- pair creation threshold
• A recent change in the optical and γ-ray polarization of the Crab nebula and pulsar
• HST/WFPC2 observations of the LMC pulsar PSR B0540-69
• Polarized synchrotron emission from the equatorial current sheet in gamma-ray pulsars
• Excess Optical Enhancement Observed with ARCONS for Early Crab Giant Pulses
• Multiwavelength Polarization of Rotation-Powered Pulsars
• Observation of polarised hard X-ray emission from the Crab by the PoGOLite Pathfinder
• Phase-resolved polarization properties of the pulsar striped wind synchrotron emission
• The Galway Astronomical Stokes Polarimeter: An All-Stokes Optical Polarimeter with Ultra-High Time Resolution
• The PoGO+ Balloon-Borne Hard X-ray Polarimetry Mission
• Aqueye optical observations of the Crab Nebula pulsar
• Calibration of the Liverpool Telescope RINGO3 polarimeter
• HST optical polarimetry of the Vela pulsar & nebula
• 2003-2018 Monitoring of the Crab Nebula Polarization in hard X-rays with INTEGRAL SPI
• Stokes tomography of radio pulsar magnetospheres. I. Linear polarization
• Pitfalls of statistics-limited X-ray polarization analysis
• Optical linear polarization of 74 white dwarfs with the RoboPol polarimeter
• The INTEGRAL view of the pulsating hard X-ray sky: from accreting and transitional millisecond pulsars to rotation-powered pulsars and magnetars
• The first ultraviolet detection of the Large Magellanic Cloud pulsar PSR B0540-69 and its multi-wavelength properties
• Circular polarisation of synchrotron radiation in high magnetic fields
• Gamma-Ray Polarimetry of the Crab Pulsar Observed by POLAR
• Rotational asymmetry of pulsar profiles
• Instrumentation and Future Missions in the Upcoming Era of X-Ray Polarimetry
• Synthetic pulsar lightcurves from global kinetic simulations and comparison with the Fermi-LAT catalog
• Improved Measurements of the IXPE Crab Polarization
• High-Time-Resolution Measurements of the Polarization of the Crab Pulsar at 1.38 GHz
• VLT polarimetry observations of PSR B0656+14
• Inverse Mapping of Polarised Optical Emission from Pulsars : Basic Formulation and Determination of Emission Altitude
• A search for optical bursts from RRAT J1819-1458: II. Simultaneous ULTRACAM-Lovell Telescope observations
• Constrains on optical emission of FAST-detected FRB 20181130B with GWAC synchronized observations
• Crab Pulsar: IXPE Observations Reveal Unified Polarization Properties Across Optical and Soft X-Ray Bands
• Optical photon-counting observation of the Crab pulsar with Kanata telescope using prototype IMONY
• A Study on the X-Ray Pulse Profile and Spectrum of the Crab Pulsar Using NICER and Insight-HXMT's Observations
• Superdense beaming of axion dark matter in the vicinity of the light cylinder of pulsars
• Phase resolved deadtime of the Crab pulsar using IXPE data
• Hard X-ray Polarimetry -- An overview of the method, science drivers and recent findings
• A mechanism-independent methodology for modeling γ-ray phaseograms of pulsars in the framework of north-south symmetry
• X-Ray Polarization Study of Pulsar Wind Nebulae with eXTP: Simulation Results and Scientific Prospects
• One-week optical observations of pulsed emission from the Crab pulsar with IMONY on the 3.8 m Seimei telescope
• In-flight calibration of the INTEGRAL/IBIS Compton mode: Application to the Crab Nebula polarization