Research report 2011 - Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (Hanover)

Discovery of new gamma-ray pulsars with innovative analysis method used in gravitational-wave astronomy

Authors
Pletsch, Holger J.
Departments
Experimentelle Relativität und Kosmologie (Bruce Allen)
Summary
Pulsars are rapidly rotating, highly magnetized neutron stars which act as cosmic lighthouses by flashing at radio, X-ray or gamma-ray wavelengths. The search for gamma-ray-only pulsars is extremely difficult and computing-intensive. Even high-tech telescopes, like the one aboard the Fermi satellite, register only a few gamma-ray photons per day from such a pulsar. Using a more efficient analysis method, originally developed for detection of gravitational waves from these fast spinning neutron stars, a number of previously unknown gamma-ray pulsars have been discovered in the Fermi data.

For the full text, see the German version.

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