Clocks in the Sky

by McNamara, Geoff

• ISBN13: 9780387765600
• ISBN10: 0387765603
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-02-28
• Publisher: Praxis

Summary

Pulsars are rapidly spinning neutron stars, the collapsed cores of once massive stars that ended their lives as supernova explosions. Pulsar rotation rates can reach incredible speeds, up to hundreds of times per second. The story of how an object 'spins up' to a significant fraction of the speed of light is fascinating and involves collapsing stellar cores following supernova explosions, while the faster ones result from stellar cannibalism.In this book, Geoff McNamara explores the history, subsequent discovery and contemporary research into pulsar astronomy. The story of pulsars is brought right up to date with the announcement in 2006 of a new breed of pulsar, Rotating Radio Transients (RRATs), which emit short bursts of radio signals separated by long pauses. These may outnumber conventional radio pulsars by a ratio of four to one. Geoff McNamara ends by pointing out that, despite the enormous success of pulsar research in the second half of the twentieth century, the real discoveries are yet to be made including, perhaps, the detection of the hypothetical pulsar black hole binary system by the proposed Square Kilometre Array - the largest single radio telescope in the world.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	p. vii
Acknowledgements	p. ix
List of Abbreviations	p. xi
Prologue	p. xiii
Introduction	p. 1
Life and Death Among the Stars	p. 5
1932	p. 15
A New Window	p. 27
Scruff	p. 39
What Makes Pulsars Tick?	p. 55
The Crab	p. 67
Optical Pulsars	p. 81
The Searchers	p. 97
Two by Two	p. 109
Faster and Stronger	p. 121
Globular Pulsars	p. 129
Pulsar Planets	p. 137
Magnetars	p. 147
Seeing Double	p. 157
Of Multibeams and RRATs	p. 165
The Future	p. 175
Appendix	p. 181
Index	p. 187
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