29 July 2015 to 6 August 2015
World Forum
Europe/Amsterdam timezone

On the Spectral Shape of Gamma-ray Pulsars Above the Break Energy

4 Aug 2015, 16:00
1h
Mississippi Foyer (World Forum)

Mississippi Foyer

World Forum

Churchillplein 10 2517 JW Den Haag The Netherlands
Board: 87
Poster contribution GA-EX Poster 3 GA

Speaker

Mr Christopher Bochenek (University of Chicago)

Description

It is well known that, for bright gamma-ray pulsars with high statistics above a few GeV, the phase averaged spectral energy distribution (SED) is harder than a simple exponential cutoff above the break. We perform phase-resolved spectral analyses of bright gamma-ray pulsars and demonstrate that, even over narrow phase ranges, the SEDs of gamma-ray pulsars above the break energy are harder than a simple exponential cutoff. We argue within a radiation-reaction limited curvature framework that this is indicative of non-stationary emission or emission from multiple zones. Further, we address a common problem faced when fitting hard spectral tails with a power-law times a sub-exponential function. Namely, that the sub-exponent parameter does not describe any parameters of physical models of pulsar emission. We introduce a simple analytical fit function to solve this problem.
Registration number following "ICRC2015-I/" 679
Collaboration -- not specified --

Primary authors

Dr Andrew McCann (University of Chicago) Mr Christopher Bochenek (University of Chicago)

Presentation materials