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Modelling the thermal absorption and radio spectra of the binary pulsar B1259–63

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Abstract

We present the results of modelling of the radio spectrum evolution and dispersion measure variations of PSR B1259–63, a pulsar in a binary system with Be star LS 2883.

We base our model on a hypothesis that the observed variations of the spectrum are caused by thermal free-free absorption occurring in the pulsar surroundings. We reproduce the observed pulsar spectral shapes in order to examine the influence of the stellar wind of LS 2883 and the equatorial disc on the pulsar’s radiation.

The simulations of the pulsar’s radio emission and its consequent free-free absorption give us an insight into the impact of stellar wind and equatorial disc of LS 2883 has on the shapes of PSR B1259–63 radio spectra, providing an evidence for the connection between gigahertz-peaked spectra phenomenon and the close environment of the pulsar. Additionally, we supplement our model with an external absorbing medium, which results in a good agreement between simulated and observational data.

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Notes

  1. Disc thickness decreases exponentially towards the star, while the disc density in the plane of the disc rises “only” as \(R^{-m}\).

  2. The spectra of the pulsar are apparently heavily affected by interstellar scintillation, as it was shown by Kijak et al. (2011a).

  3. See for example the observations of PSR B0329+54 by Lewandowski et al. (2011), where the refractive time scale at the frequency of 5 GHz is close to 5 hours. While the \(\mathit{DM}\) of that pulsar is significantly lower (26 versus \(146.6~\mbox{pc}\,\mbox{cm}^{-3}\)) and the distance to B1259–63 is slightly more than twice as high (1.0 kpc versus 2.3 kpc), the dependence between the distance and the refractive time scale is relatively moderate, as \(t_{RISS}\propto d^{1.6}\). This could mean that the refractive time scale for B1259–63 is of the order of a few days at most at 5 GHz, and even lower at 8 GHz.

  4. \(l= 304.18^{\circ}\) and \(b= -0.99^{\circ}\).

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Acknowledgements

We thank the anonymous referee for the comments and suggestions that helped us to greatly improve the paper. This work was supported by the grant DEC-2013/09/B/ST9/02177 of the Polish National Science Centre.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Janusz Gil Institute of Astronomy, University of Zielona Góra, ul. Szafrana 2, 65-516, Zielona Góra, Poland

    O. Koralewska, J. Kijak & W. Lewandowski

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  1. O. Koralewska
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  2. J. Kijak
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  3. W. Lewandowski
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Correspondence to O. Koralewska.

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Koralewska, O., Kijak, J. & Lewandowski, W. Modelling the thermal absorption and radio spectra of the binary pulsar B1259–63. Astrophys Space Sci 363, 141 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10509-018-3359-1

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