What If We Could Directly Measure Neutron Star Magnetic Fields To Transform Our Understanding of Massive Star Evolution?
Faculty Mentor Name
Pragati Pradhan
Format Preference
Poster
Abstract
Be X-ray binaries (BeXRBs) serve as natural laboratories for studying matter under extreme conditions, with temperatures of millions of Kelvin, densities rivaling atomic nuclei, and magnetic fields billions of times stronger than Earth. These systems, which consist of a massive Be star and a compact stellar object (neutron star) orbiting a common center of mass, provide a unique opportunity to measure the most important parameter in any astrophysical system: magnetic fields, “directly” through cyclotron resonance scattering features (CRSFs) seen in their X-ray spectrum. CRSFs generally appear in absorption in the X-ray spectra of objects that contain highly magnetized neutron stars. CRSFs are caused by the resonant scattering of photons by electrons in strong magnetic fields, and allow direct measurement of magnetic field strength in these objects. We are currently focusing on the CRSF measurement of one Be X-ray binary XTE J1946+274. We find that the X-ray spectrum is complex and can be described by a power-law with a high energy cutoff with an absorption at 17 keV. This places the magnetic field in the range of 10^12 G. We are expanding our study to other similar systems to get a comprehensive measurement of magnetic fields in these enigmatic systems.
What If We Could Directly Measure Neutron Star Magnetic Fields To Transform Our Understanding of Massive Star Evolution?
Be X-ray binaries (BeXRBs) serve as natural laboratories for studying matter under extreme conditions, with temperatures of millions of Kelvin, densities rivaling atomic nuclei, and magnetic fields billions of times stronger than Earth. These systems, which consist of a massive Be star and a compact stellar object (neutron star) orbiting a common center of mass, provide a unique opportunity to measure the most important parameter in any astrophysical system: magnetic fields, “directly” through cyclotron resonance scattering features (CRSFs) seen in their X-ray spectrum. CRSFs generally appear in absorption in the X-ray spectra of objects that contain highly magnetized neutron stars. CRSFs are caused by the resonant scattering of photons by electrons in strong magnetic fields, and allow direct measurement of magnetic field strength in these objects. We are currently focusing on the CRSF measurement of one Be X-ray binary XTE J1946+274. We find that the X-ray spectrum is complex and can be described by a power-law with a high energy cutoff with an absorption at 17 keV. This places the magnetic field in the range of 10^12 G. We are expanding our study to other similar systems to get a comprehensive measurement of magnetic fields in these enigmatic systems.