Searching for Neutron Stars in Disguise with NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory

          @misc{ pirsa_PIRSA:11070051,
            doi = {10.48660/11070051},
            url = {https://pirsa.org/11070051},
            author = {He, Alina Chen},
            keywords = {},
            language = {en},
            title = {Searching for Neutron Stars in Disguise with NASA{\textquoteright}s Chandra X-ray Observatory},
            publisher = {Perimeter Institute},
            year = {2011},
            month = {jul},
            note = {PIRSA:11070051 see, \url{https://pirsa.org}}
          }
          

Abstract

Neutron stars are the collapsed cores of massive stars that went under supernova explosions. They are found with high surface magnetic fields, rapid but steady rotation and high density comparable to that inside an atomic nucleus. In the past 20 years, many different classes of neutron stars have been discovered. One of the most enigmatic classes of neutron stars is the compact central objects (CCOs). Only seven of them have been discovered and their emission process are still not well understood. Three of them have magnetic field estimates which are found to be significantly lower than those of the other neutron stars of comparable age. I will describe our project searching for more of these mysterious objects with NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. We compiled a list of eleven nearby weak-field neutron stars to look for CCO-like X-ray emission. Chandra carried short observations of six of them and no x-ray emission was found. The physical implications of the results will be discussed.