A Chinese team of scientists has recorded the strongest magnetic field reading ever for a neutron star. The reading recorded was as much as 60 percent higher than the previous record set in 2020.
This new measurement has the potential to open the door to more discoveries, as the ultraluminescent X-ray source technique that was used has gigantic potential.
Researchers from the team operating China’s Insight-HXMT satellite have detected a cyclotron absorption line with an energy of 146 keV in the double X-rays of the neutron star Swift J0243.6+6124.
The value was equivalent to a surface magnetic field of more than 1.6 billion Tesla and is the highest ever recorded for objects in the known universe. So far, the previous record was around 1 billion Tesla and was from 2020.
An X-ray double neutron star system is made up of a neutron star and a companion star. Due to the enormous gravitational force of the former, the gas of the companion star is drawn to the neutron star, creating an accretion disk.
The plasma in the accretion disk descends along magnetic lines to the surface of the neutron star, where strong X-rays are released. Along with the neutron star’s rotation, the aforementioned emissions produce periodic pulses of X-rays, hence the name for these objects.
Such objects also have cyclotron absorption lines, arising from resonant scattering, traveling along strong magnetic fields. This energy is equal to the strength of the neutron star’s surface magnetic field. That is why it was possible to study Swift J0243.6+6124, the first ultra-light X-ray pulsar in the Milky Way, in detail.
A new measurement record for strongest #magneticfield in universe @AAS_Office https://t.co/2ZvPt5k3zx https://t.co/GmWC4Qfha8
— Phys.org (@physorg_com) July 12, 2022
