Gamma-ray and X-ray telescopes have long been sensitive to transient phenomena, with rich scientific returns resulting from the discovery of sources such as gamma-ray bursts, soft gamma-ray repeaters and anomalous X-ray pulsars. The situation at radio wavelengths, however, is dramatically different. While radio telescopes typically have sensitivity to events with short timescales, they have much narrower fields of view than their high-energy counterparts. Consequently, most transient radio studies have been follow-up observations of events first detected at higher energies. Radio transient studies are important, however, as they can probe explosive and dynamic events which do not necessarily have counterparts at other wavelengths.
Figure 3.1 illustrates the types of objects that we might expect to discover with surveys for short timescale (i.e. durations ≲ 1 day) radio transients. The brightest such sources are radio pulsars, with the “nano-giant” pulses from the Crab pulsar having brightness temperatures up to 1038 K [23] and the single pulses of “normal” pulsars having brightness temperatures of 1028 K. Well-known weaker sources include planetary radio flares [6], Type I and Type II flares from the Sun and other stars [41], bursts from active stars such as UV Ceti and AD Leo [42], OH maser emission [10], radio flares from brown dwarfs such as BD LP944—20 [3], AGN radio outbursts [1] and intraday variability of GRB afterglows [19] and other extra-galactic radio sources due to interstellar scintillation [32].
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Aller, H. D. et al., 1985, ApJS, 59, 513.
Becker, W. & Trümper, J., 1997, A&A, 326, 682.
Berger, E. et al., 2001, Nature, 410, 338.
Bignami, G. F. et al., 2003, Nature, 423, 725.
Burgay, M. et al., 2006, MNRAS, 368, 283.
Burke, B. F. & Franklin, K. L., 1955, J Geophys Res, 60, 213.
Camilo, F. et al., 2006, Nature, 442, 892.
Chen, K. & Ruderman, M., 1993, ApJ, 408, 179.
Cognard, I. et al., 1996, ApJ, 457, 81.
Cohen, R. J. & Brebner, G. C., 1985, MNRAS, 216, 51.
Cordes, J. M. & Lazio, T. J. W., 2002, (astro-ph/0207156).
Cordes, J. M & McLaughlin, M. A., 2003, ApJ, 596, 1142.
Cordes, J. M. & Shannon, R. M., 2006, ApJ, 682, 1152 (astro-ph/0605145).
Cordes, J. M. et al., 2004, ApJ, 612, 375.
Deneva, J., 2007, in Proceedings of the 363. WE-Heraeus Seminar on: Neutron Stars and Pulsars, eds. W. Becker, H. H. Huang, MPE Report 291, pp. 52–55
Diehl, R. et al., 2006, Nature, 439, 45.
Edwards, R. T. et al., 2001, MNRAS, 326, 358.
Gonzalez, M. E. et al., 2005, ApJ, 630, 489.
Goodman, J., 1997, New Astron, 2, 449.
Gotthelf, E. V. et al., 2004, ApJ, 605, 368.
Haberl, F., 2007, A&SS, 308, 181.
Hallinan, G. et al., 2007, ApJ, 663, L25.
Hankins, T. H. et al., 2003, Nature, 422, 141.
Hankins, T. H. et al., 2003, Nature, 422, 141.
Hessels, J. W. T. et al., 2007, (astro-ph/0710.1745).
Hobbs, G. et al., 2005, AJ, 129, 1993.
Hyman, S. D. et al., 2005, Nature, 434, 50.
Ibrahim, A. I. et al., 2004, ApJ, 609, L21.
Johnston, S. & Romani, R., 2003, ApJ, 590, L95.
Kaplan, D. L. & van Kerkwijk, M. H., 2005, ApJ, 628, L45.
Kaspi, V. M. & McLaughlin, M. A., 2004, ApJ, 618, L41.
KedzioraChudczer, L. L. et al., 2001, MNRAS, 325, 1411.
van Kerkwijk, M. H. & Kaplan, D. L., 2007, A&SS, 308, 191.
Knight, H. S., 2006, Chin J Astron Astrophys Suppl, 6, 41.
Kramer, M. et al., 2006, Science, 312, 549.
Lewandowski, W. et al., 2004, ApJ, 600, 905.
Li, X-D., 2006, ApJ, 646, L139.
Lorimer, D. R. & Kramer, M., 2005, Cambridge University Press, 2005.
Lorimer, D. R. et al., 2006, MNRAS, 372, 777.
Lorimer, D. R., Bailes, M., McLaughlin, M. A., et al., 2007, Science, 318, 777
Lovell, A. C. B., 1964, Nature, 201, 1013.
Lovell, B, & Solomon, L. H., 1966, The Observatory, 86, 16.
De Luca, A. et al., 2005, ApJ, 623, 1051.
Luo, Q. & Melrose, D., 2007, MNRAS, 378, 1481.
Lyne, A. G. et al., 1998, MNRAS, 295, 743.
McLaughlin, M. A. & Cordes, J. M., 2003, ApJ, 596, 982.
McLaughlin, M. A. et al., 2003, ApJ, 591, L135.
McLaughlin, M. A. et al., 2006, Nature, 439, 817.
Pivovaroff, M., Kaspi, V. M. & Camilo, F., 2000, ApJ, 535, 379.
Popov, S. B., Turolla, R. & Possenti, A., 2006, MNRAS, 369, L23.
Press, W. H. et al., 1986, Numerical recipes: the art of scientific computing, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Rea, N. G. et al., 2007, A&SS, 308, 505.
Rea, N. et al., 2007, ApJ, 661, L65.
Reynolds, S. P. et al., 2006, ApJ, 639, L71.
Romani, R. & Johnston, S., 2001, ApJ, 557, L93.
Staelin, D. H., 1969, Proc IEEE, 57, 724.
Tauris, T. M. & Manchester, R. N., 1998, MNRAS, 298, 625.
Vranesevic, N. et al., 2004, ApJ, 617, L139.
Wang, N., Manchester, R. N. & Johnston, S., 2007, MNRAS, 377, 1383.
Weltevrede, P. et al., 2006, ApJ, 645, L149.
White, N. E., Giommi, P. & Angelini, L., 1994, BAAS, 185, 4111.
Woods, P. M. & Thompson, C., 2006, in Compact stellar X-ray sources, 547.
Zane, S. et al., 2001, ApJ, 560, 384.
Zhang, B., Gil, J. & Dyks, J., 2007, MNRAS, 374, 1103.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2009 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
McLaughlin, M. (2009). Rotating Radio Transients. In: Becker, W. (eds) Neutron Stars and Pulsars. Astrophysics and Space Science Library, vol 357. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-76965-1_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-76965-1_3
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-76964-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-76965-1
eBook Packages: Physics and AstronomyPhysics and Astronomy (R0)