REALISTIC MODELING OF THE PULSE PROFILE OF PSR J0737-3039A

B. B. P. Perera, C. Kim, M. A. McLaughlin, R. D. Ferdman, M. Kramer, I. H. Stairs, P. C. C. Freire, A. Possenti
2014 Astrophysical Journal  
The Double Pulsar, PSR J0737-3039A/B, is a unique system in which both neutron stars have been detected as radio pulsars. As shown in Ferdman et al., there is no evidence for pulse profile evolution of the A pulsar, and the geometry of the pulsar was fit well with a double-pole circular radio beam model. Assuming a more realistic polar cap model with a vacuum retarded dipole magnetosphere configuration including special relativistic effects, we create synthesized pulse profiles for A given the
more » ... est-fit geometry from the simple circular beam model. By fitting synthesized pulse profiles to those observed from pulsar A, we constrain the geometry of the radio beam, namely the half-opening angle and the emission altitude, to be 30^∘ and 10 neutron star radii, respectively. Combining the observational constraints of PSR J0737-3039A/B, we are able to construct the full three-dimensional orbital geometry of the Double Pulsar. The relative angle between the spin axes of the two pulsars (Δ_S) is estimated to be (138^∘± 5^∘) at the current epoch and will likely remain constant until tidal interactions become important in ∼85 Myr, at merger.
doi:10.1088/0004-637x/787/1/51 fatcat:s7tzqnslnjavbbxq5bj2tymwf4