Anomalous X-ray pulsar

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Anomalous X-ray Pulsars (AXPs) are now widely believed to be magnetars—young, isolated, highly magnetized neutron stars. These energtic X-ray pulsars are characterized by slow rotation periods of ~5–12 seconds and large magnetic fields of ~10¹³–10¹⁵ gauss (1 to 100 gigateslas). There are currently (as of 2005) 6 known and 2 candidate AXPs. The identification of AXPs with magnetars was motivated by their similarity to another enigmatic class of sources, the soft gamma repeaters.

A list of AXP candidates and their estimated rotation period in seconds, as of 2003, follows:
AXP 1E 2259+586	6.98
AXP 1E 1048-59	6.45
AXP 4U 0142+61	8.69
AXP 1RXS 1708-40	11.0
AXP 1E 1841-045	11.8
AXP AXJ1844-0258	6.97
AXP CXJ0110-7211	5.44
Please note that the second, fourth, and last names were abbreviated

[edit] References

Chryssa Kouveliotou, Robert Duncan, and Christopher Thompson (February 2003). "Magnetars." Scientific American, p.37

[edit] External links

• SGR/AXP Online Catalog (An online catalog of AXP properties maintained by the pulsar group at McGill University)
• Meissner Effect in Quark Stars (University of Calgary)