Astron. Astrophys. 355, 1053-1059 (2000)

The pulse shape and spectrum of the millisecond pulsar PSR J0218+4232 in the energy band 1-10 keV observed with BeppoSAX

T. Mineo ¹, G. Cusumano ¹, L. Kuiper ², W. Hermsen ², E. Massaro ³, W. Becker ⁴, L. Nicastro ¹, B. Sacco ¹, F. Verbunt ⁵, A.G. Lyne ⁶, I.H. Stairs ⁶ and S. Shibata <sup>7

1</sup> Istituto di Fisica Cosmica ed Applicazioni all'Informatica CNR, Via U. La Malfa 153, 90146, Palermo, Italy
² SRON-Utrecht, Sorbonnelaan 2, 3584 CA Utrecht, The Netherlands
³ Istituto Astronomico, Unita' GIFCO Roma-1, Universita' "La Sapienza", Via Lancisi 29, 00161 Roma, Italy
⁴ Max-Planck-Institut für Extraterrestrische Physik, 85740 Garching bei München, Germany
⁵ Astronomical Institute Utrecht University, P.O. Box 80000, 3508 TA Utrecht, The Netherlands
⁶ University of Manchester, Jodrell Bank, Macclesfield SK11 9DL, UK
⁷ Department of Physics, Yamagata University, Kojirakawa, Yamagata 990-8560, Japan

Received 5 November 1999 / Accepted 21 January 2000

Abstract

We present the results of a BeppoSAX observation of PSR J0218+4232 which, for the first time, provides detailed information on the pulsar's temporal and spectral emission properties in the broad band 1-10 keV. We detected X-ray pulses with a pulsed fraction of 7312%. The pulse profile is characterized by two peaks phase separated by . The pulsed spectrum is best described by a power-law of photon index 0.610.32 with an unabsorbed (2-10 keV) X-ray flux of 4.110^-13 erg cm^-2 s^-1 implying a luminosity of erg s^-1 and an X-ray efficiency of where is the solid angle spanned by the emission beam.

Key words: stars: neutron stars: pulsars: individual: PSR J0218+4232 X-rays: stars

Send offprint requests to: T. Mineo (mineo@ifcai.pa.cnr.it)

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Contents

• 1. Introduction
• 2. Observation
• 3. Spatial analysis
• 4. Timing analysis
• 5. Spectral analysis
• 6. Discussion
• Acknowledgements
• References

© European Southern Observatory (ESO) 2000

Online publication: March 21, 2000
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