Evolution of the X-ray Profile of the Crab Pulsar

Abstract

Using the archive data from the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer ({\sl RXTE}), we have studied the evolution of the X-ray profile of the Crab pulsar in a time span of 11 years. The X-ray profiles, as characterized by a few parameters, changed slightly but significantly in these years: the separation of the two peaks increased with a rate $0.88\pm0.20\,\textordmasculine$\,per century, the flux ratio of the second pulse to the first pulse decreased with $(3.64\pm 0.86)\times 10^{-2}$\,per century, and the pulse widths of the two pulses descended with $1.44\pm0.15\,\textordmasculine$\, and $1.09\pm0.73\,\textordmasculine$\,per century, respectively. The evolutionary trends of the above parameters are similar to the radio results, but the values are different. We briefly discussed the constraints of these X-ray properties on the geometry of the emission region of this pulsar.

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Cited by in corpus (10)

• Inclination angle and braking index evolution of pulsars with plasma-filled magnetosphere: application to high braking index of PSR J1640-4631
• X-ray polarimetry of the Crab nebula with PolarLight: polarization recovery after the glitch and a secular position angle variation
• Time evolution of the X-ray and gamma-ray fluxes of the Crab pulsar
• Inorbit Performance of the Hard X-ray Telescope (HXT) on board the Hitomi (ASTRO-H) satellite
• A NICER View of Spectral and Profile Evolution for Three X-ray Emitting Millisecond Pulsars
• Phase Evolution of the Crab Pulsar between Radio and X-ray
• The influence of the Insight-HXMT/LE time response on timing analysis
• Development of the Timing System for the X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission
• Application of a two dipole model to PSR J1640-4631, a pulsar with an anomalous braking index
• The HaloSat and PolarLight CubeSat Missions for X-ray Astrophysics