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The crushed cores of exploded stars, magnetars, are a rare type of star believed to have a powerful magnetic field for reasons still unknown.
A magnetar has been detected that releases radio staccato pulses in a sign of unusual behavior for one of the rarest stars in the galaxy.
In an investigation into the study, titled “Spectropolarimetric properties of Swift J1818.0−1607: a magnetar radius of 1.4 s “, and submitted for peer review, Swift J1818.0-1607 has been recorded acting as a radio pulsar instead of a radio magnetar.
What makes the research even more fascinating is that it is the fifth magnetar to detect pulsed radio emission waves.
The research, uploaded to the ‘arXiv’ prepress server, is hailed as promising in its attempts to understand the links between the two classifications of dead stars: a pulsar and a magnetar.
“I think it’s safe to call it a possible missing link. At this stage there is still a lot we don’t know about this new magnetar, but there are clear similarities between it and the high magnetic field pulsars,” said one lead author. of the study, astrophysicist Marcus Lower of Swinburne University of Technology was cited by Science alert.
The Burst Alert telescope connected to the Swift Observatory detected that Swift J1818.0-1607 suffered a gamma-ray burst on March 12, 2020, with subsequent observations detecting the pulsed X-ray emission and two days later, the radio emission.
Initial analysis showed that the magnetar is the fastest spinning pulsar found and possibly, at 240, the youngest.
The team of astronomers, led by Lower, informed the Parkes Observatory radio telescope in Australia for further observations, recording the object for three hours. The result initially showed that the star emitted pulsed radio waves similar to those of other radio pulsars.
“At a glance, the radio pulses emitted by Swift J1818.0-1607 closely resemble those of the other four radio magnetars. They are very narrow and sometimes composed of multiple bursts of milliseconds in length … Without However, when we look at how bright the pulses are at different radio frequencies, we realized that there is a dramatic drop in brightness when going from low to high frequencies. While this is similar to many ordinary radio pulses, it is very different from the pulses seen from other magnetars. ” Lower said.
The recorded radio burst showed similarity to a specific radio burst from a high magnetic field pulsar called PSR J1119-6127 recorded in 2016.
Lower added that the two stars also had similar radio brightness, which might suggest that the mechanism behind the radio bursts was similar, and fueled the theory that some magnetars could evolve from pulsars.
Mystery of magnetars
Magnetars are a subcategory of neutron stars, which are the dense remnants of the core of a large star that had transformed into a supernova.
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Supernova explosion
But the distinctive feature of magnetars is their powerful magnetic fields, which are about a billion times more powerful than those on planet Earth. Science has not yet revealed the reasons for this.
Magnetars are rare, with only about 24 discovered in our galaxy so far. Of these, only a few have been detected emitting radio waves.
The other classification of dead stars, pulsars, has been identified by thousands.
Pulsars are neutron stars that spin and emit jets of radio radiation from their poles.
Scientists have been speculating that since pulsars and magnetars are both forms of a neutron star, there would be common factors linking them. However, all studies have failed to elicit significant data, and astronomers assume this is because the magnetic field is too powerful to withstand pulsar radio emission.
Current research suggests that most magnetars “face the wrong path.”
“The most likely reason is that their radio beams simply do not cross our line of sight … This is not too surprising, as their slow rotation periods and the high speed at which they decrease over time causes them to have beams of very tight radius compared to other pulsars, “Lower explains.
After current groundbreaking research, more observations would be needed to confirm the findings.
“That the radio emission from this magnetar does not exactly match our expectations from the observations of other radio magnetars is quite exciting, and shows how much more we have yet to learn about these extreme objects,” Lower concluded.
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