Astronomers conducted a study of unusually powerful single pulses coming from a millisecond pulsar called PSR B1744−24A. In this new study, the properties of these impulses are identified that can help to better understand their nature.
Located at a distance of 19,200 light years from us in a globular cluster of Terzan 5 stars, the object PSR B1744−24A, or B1744−24A for short, is an eclipsing millisecond pulsar that is part of an ablative binary system. The period of rotation of the pulsar is 11.56 milliseconds, and it has a companion star of relatively small mass, which is no more than 1/10 of the mass of the Sun.
Observations of the PSR B1744−24A pulsar showed that it demonstrates sharp drops in the intensity of radiation in the radio frequency range and unusually powerful pulses, the intensity of which can be 40 times greater than the average intensity of the pulses at approximately the same pulse width.
In a new study, a group of astronomers led by Anna Bilous from the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands, studied the properties of these unusually powerful pulses observed by the pulsar PSR B1744-24A using historical data from observations of this object using the Robert Meter 100-meter telescope C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope (GBT) in 2009. The authors found that, on the whole, the properties of the pulses under study are difficult to explain by scintillations in the interstellar medium, by a particular radiation mode, or attributed to the usual giant pulses. According to the study, the unusually powerful pulses observed on the pulsar PSR B1744−24A are similar to the pulses observed in the case of the so-called Black Widow pulsar (PSR B1957 + 20). Considering the fact that the pulses coming from the Black Widow pulsar turned out to be lensed material present in the binary system between its components, the authors suggest that a similar explanation remains the only possible case for the PSR B1744−24A pulsar.
We believe that in the case of the pulsar B1744−24A, there is also a powerful impulse lensing.
-Authors
Unusually powerful single pulses of a pulsar
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