An international astronomer team found a new radio pulsar using a LOFAR radio interferometer. The object was designated PSR J0250 + 5854 and is notable for the fact that it is the most slowly rotating radio pulsar, known to date.
Extraterrestrial sources of radiation with a regular periodicity, known as pulsars, are usually viewed as short bursts of radio emission. Radio pulsars are strongly magnetized and rapidly rotating neutron stars, forming a kind of beacon with the emission of light, which forms pulsed radiation.
Scientists find it difficult to find new long-term radio pulsars, whose rotation period covers more than 5 s. It is noteworthy that only 5 out of 10 known pulsars with the longest period were identified in search of periodicity due to their consistently larger aggregate flow over time.
A new object with a relatively long rotation period was noticed in July 2017 using the LOFAR radio telescope network as part of the LOTAAS study - northern observation of pulsars and fast transients at a center frequency of 135 MHz. Subsequent reviews were carried out using various ground-based observatories, including the Green Bank radio telescope and the im. B. Lovell and Nancay Telescope.
PSR J0250 + 5854 detection chart, folded in the main period of 23.535 seconds in accordance with the harmonically related candidates from the same observation. Note that it was not possible to fix a single candidate in the most fundamental period.
PSR J0250 + 5854 lives at a distance of 5200 light years from Earth. The rotation period covers 23.5 s, which is why it is considered the slowest rotating radio pulsar. Moreover, it has the slowest rotation rate in comparison with the known magnetars and X-ray dim isolated neutron stars (XDINS).
The strength of the surface magnetic field in PSR J0250 + 5854 reaches 26 trillion. G, and age - 13.7 million years. The researchers emphasized the importance of the discovery, noting that it significantly expanded the known range of periods of pulsars. They also added that LOTAAS has the potential to detect slower pulsars.
