Pulsed optical emission from Geminga

Shearer, A.; Golden, A.; Harfst, S.; Butler, R.; Redfern, R. M.; O'Sullivan, C. M.; Beskin, G. M.; Neizvestny, S. I.; Neustroev, V. V.; Plokhotnichenko, V. L.; Cullum, M.; Danks, A.

Pulsed optical emission from Geminga

Authors

Plokhotnichenko, V. L.

Description

We present optical data which shows that G", the optical counterpart of the gamma-ray pulsar Geminga, pulses in B with a period of 0.237 seconds. The similarity between the optical pulse shape and the gamma-ray light curve indicates that a large fraction of the optical emission is non-thermal in origin - contrary to recent suggestions based upon the total optical flux. The derived magnitude of the pulsed emission is m_B = 26.0 +/- 0.4. Whilst it is not possible to give an accurate figure for the pulsed fraction (due to variations in the sky background) we can give an upper limit of m_B ~ 27 for the unpulsed fraction.
5 pages, 3 figures, Latex, submitted to A&A