Radio emission from a neutron star’s magnetic pole revealed by General Relativity
Pulsars in binary systems are affected by relativistic effects, causing the spin axes of each pulsar to change their direction with time. A research team led by Gregory Desvignes from the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn, Germany, has used radio observations of the source PSR J1906+0746 to reconstruct the polarised emission over the pulsar’s magnetic pole and to predict the disappearance of the detectable emission by 2028. Observations of this system confirm the validity of a 50-year old model that relates the pulsar’s radiation to its geometry. The researchers are also able to precisely measure the rate of change in spin direction and find an excellent agreement with the predictions of Einstein’s general theory of relativity.
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