Prospects for Neutron Star Equation of State Constraints using "Recycled" Millisecond Pulsars
arXiv:1510.06371 · doi:10.1140/epja/i2016-16037-x
Abstract
Rotation-powered "recycled" millisecond pulsars are a variety of rapidly-spinning neutron stars that typically show thermal X-ray radiation due to the heated surface of their magnetic polar caps. Detailed numerical modeling of the rotation-induced thermal X-ray pulsations observed from recycled millisecond pulsars, including all relevant relativistic and stellar atmospheric effects, has been identified as a promising approach towards an astrophysical determination of the true neutron star mass-radius relation, and by extension the state of cold matter at densities exceeding those of atomic nuclei. Herein, I review the basic model and methodology commonly used to extract information regarding neutron star structure from the pulsed X-ray radiation observed from millisecond pulsars. I also summarize the results of past X-ray observations of these objects and the prospects for precision neutron star mass-radius measurements with the upcoming Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER) X-ray timing mission.
8 pages, 7 figures; invited contribution to the European Physics Journal A topical issue on "Exotic Matter in Neutron Stars"
References in corpus (13)
- Shapiro delay measurement of a two solar mass neutron star
- A Massive Pulsar in a Compact Relativistic Binary
- Astrophysical Measurement of the Equation of State of Neutron Star Matter
- Improved Mass and Radius Constraints for Quiescent Neutron Stars in Omega Cen and NGC 6397
- Pulse profiles of millisecond pulsars and their Fourier amplitudes
- The Oblate Schwarzschild Approximation for Light Curves of Rapidly Rotating Neutron Stars
- Chandra X-Ray Observations of Nineteen Millisecond Pulsars in the Globular Cluster 47 Tucanae
- Extremely high precision VLBI astrometry of PSR J0437-4715 and implications for theories of gravity
- Prospects for Measuring Neutron-Star Masses and Radii with X-Ray Pulse Profile Modeling
- Constraints on Neutron Star Properties from X-ray Observations of Millisecond Pulsars
- The effect of accretion on the measurement of neutron star mass and radius in the low-mass X-ray binary 4U 1608-52
- Thermal X-rays from Millisecond Pulsars: Constraining the Fundamental Properties of Neutron Stars
- A Chandra Look at the X-ray Faint Millisecond Pulsars in the Globular Cluster NGC 6752
Cited by in corpus (18)
- A NICER view of PSR J0030+0451: Implications for the dense matter equation of state
- Constraining the Neutron Star Mass-Radius Relation and Dense Matter Equation of State with NICER. II. Emission from Hot Spots on a Rapidly Rotating Neutron Star
- Nuclear Equation of state for Compact Stars and Supernovae
- Neutron star universal relations with microscopic equations of state
- Discovery of synchronous X-ray and radio moding of PSR B0823+26
- Pulse profiles of highly compact pulsars in general relativity
- Discovery of Soft X-ray Pulsations from PSR J1231-1411 using NICER
- Magnetospheric return-current-heated atmospheres of rotation-powered millisecond pulsars
- Light curves from highly compact neutron stars with spot size effect
- Systematical study of pulsar light curves with special relativistic effects
- Probing the possibility of hotspots on the central neutron star in HESS J1731-347
- Pulse profiles from a pulsar in scalar-tensor gravity
- Analytical expressions for pulse profile of neutron stars in plasma environments
- X-ray burst ignition location on the surface of accreting X-ray pulsars: Can bursts preferentially ignite at the hotspot?
- Sensitivity of pulsar light curves to spacetime geometry and efficacy of analytic approximations
- X-ray study of Variable Gamma-ray Pulsar PSR J2021+4026
- Finite size effects on the light curves of slowly-rotating neutron stars
- Fast and accurate analytical formulas for light propagation in general static, spherically symmetric spacetimes