An ultra-relativistic outflow from a neutron star accreting gas from a companion

Rob Fender (), Kinwah Wu, Helen Johnston, Tasso Tzioumis, Peter Jonker, Ralph Spencer and Michiel van der Klis
Additional contact information
Rob Fender: University of Amsterdam
Kinwah Wu: University College London
Helen Johnston: University of Sydney
Tasso Tzioumis: CSIRO
Peter Jonker: University of Cambridge
Ralph Spencer: University of Manchester, Nuffield Radio Astronomy Laboratories, Jodrell Bank
Michiel van der Klis: University of Amsterdam

Nature, 2004, vol. 427, issue 6971, 222-224

Abstract: Abstract Collimated relativistic outflows—also known as jets—are amongst the most energetic phenomena in the Universe. They are associated with supermassive black holes in distant active galactic nuclei1, accreting stellar-mass black holes and neutron stars in binary systems2 and are believed to be responsible for γ-ray bursts3. The physics of these jets, however, remains something of a mystery in that their bulk velocities, compositions and energetics remain poorly determined. Here we report the discovery of an ultra-relativistic outflow from a neutron star accreting gas within a binary stellar system. The velocity of the outflow is comparable to the fastest-moving flows observed from active galactic nuclei, and its strength is modulated by the rate of accretion of material onto the neutron star. Shocks are energized further downstream in the flow, which are themselves moving at mildly relativistic bulk velocities and are the sites of the observed synchrotron emission from the jet. We conclude that the generation of highly relativistic outflows does not require properties that are unique to black holes, such as an event horizon.

Date: 2004
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature02137 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:427:y:2004:i:6971:d:10.1038_nature02137

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/nature02137

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().