Anomalous X-ray pulsars (AXPs) are an observational manifestation of

magnetar A magnetar is a type of neutron star with an extremely powerful magnetic field (∼109 to 1011 T, ∼1013 to 1015 G). The magnetic-field decay powers the emission of high-energy electromagnetic radiation, particularly X-rays and gamma rays.War ...

s—young, isolated, highly magnetized

neutron star A neutron star is the collapsed core of a massive supergiant star, which had a total mass of between 10 and 25 solar masses, possibly more if the star was especially metal-rich. Except for black holes and some hypothetical objects (e.g. w ...

s. These energetic

X-ray pulsar X-ray pulsars or accretion-powered pulsars are a class of astronomical objects that are X-ray sources displaying strict periodic variations in X-ray intensity. The X-ray periods range from as little as a fraction of a second to as much as several m ...

s are characterized by slow rotation periods of ~2–12 seconds and large magnetic fields of ~10¹³–10¹⁵

gauss Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss (; german: Gauß ; la, Carolus Fridericus Gauss; 30 April 177723 February 1855) was a German mathematician and physicist who made significant contributions to many fields in mathematics and science. Sometimes refer ...

(1 to 100 gigateslas). , there were 12 confirmed and 2 candidate AXPs known.SGR/AXP Online Catalog
(An online catalog of SGR/AXP properties maintained by the pulsar group at McGill University) The identification of AXPs with magnetars was motivated by their similarity to

soft gamma repeater A soft gamma repeater (SGR) is an astronomical object which emits large bursts of gamma-rays and X-rays at irregular intervals. It is conjectured that they are a type of magnetar or, alternatively, neutron stars with fossil disks around them. Hi ...

References

Sources

External links