Discovery of a possible anomalous x-ray pulsar in the small magellanic cloud
May, 200216 pages
Published in:
- Astrophys.J.Lett. 574 (2002) L29-L32,
- Astrophys.J.Lett. 599 (2003) L115-L116 (addendum)
e-Print:
- astro-ph/0205310 [astro-ph]
DOI:
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Abstract: (arXiv)
We report the serendipitous detection of a previously unreported pulsar from the direction of the Small Magellanic Cloud using data from the CHANDRA X-Ray Observatory. Because of the luminosity of about 1.5x10^35 ergs/s, its near lack of variability for more than 20 years, and its soft spectrum we propose that it is an anomalous X-ray pulsar (AXP). Data from the ROSAT PSPC in conjunction with the CHANDRA data give a period, P, of 5.44 s and a spin down time, Pdot/P, of 11 ky. If this is a correct identification it will be the first extragalactic AXP and the fastest yet discovered.References(11)
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