Michele's wiki/blog

Authors: M. Kramer, D. R. Lorimer, A. G. Lyne, M. McLaughlin, M.Burgay, N. D'Amico, A. Possenti, F. Camilo, P. C. C. Freire, B. C. Joshi, R. N. Manchester, J. Reynolds, J. Sarkissian, I. H. Stairs, R. D. Ferdman

Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2005

Abstract: This first ever double pulsar system consists of two pulsars orbiting the common center of mass in a slightly eccentric orbit of only 2.4-hr duration. The pair of pulsars with pulse periods of 22 ms and 2.8 sec, respectively, confirms the long-proposed recycling theory for millisecond pulsars and provides an exciting opportunity to study the works of pulsar magnetospheres by a very fortunate geometrical alignment of the orbit relative to our line-of-sight. In particular, this binary system represents a truly unique laboratory for relativistic gravitational physics. This contribution serves as an update on the currently obtained results and their consequences for the test of general relativity in the strong-field regime. A complete and more up-to-date report of the timing results will be presented elsewhere shortly.

abs pdf