The work of scientists from the University of Warwick made it possible to make a very interesting discovery – an exotic binary star system was discovered 380 light years from Earth, which was identified as an elusive white dwarf pulsar, the first of its kind. The study is titled 'Polarimetric Evidence for a White Dwarf Pulsar in the AR Scorpio Binary System' in the journal Nature Astronomy.
The object reported as the first white dwarf pulsar has been designated AR Scorpio (AR Sco). The discovery was made by Professors Tom Marsh and Boris Gansik of the University of Astrophysics of Warwick, assisted by Dr. David Buckley of the South African Astronomical Observatory.
Astronomers have been trying to find a white dwarf pulsar for over half a century, and now, finally, they succeeded. AR Sco is a rapidly rotating, almost burnt-out remnant of a star – a white dwarf that 'shoots' powerful beams of electric particles and radiation, as a result, becomes invisible every two minutes.
Recent research has established that the AR Sco's 'whip' of energy is a concentrated 'beam' of concentrated unidirectional radiation, similar to that produced by a particle accelerator – an absolutely unique phenomenon in the known universe.
AR Sco is located in the constellation Scorpio, 380 light years from Earth, that is, close enough in astronomical terms. A white dwarf is about the size of Earth, but AR Sco is 200,000 times more massive. This turned out to be possible due to the electromagnetic field, which is 100 million times more powerful than on Earth and has a rotation period of 2 minutes, which is why the AR Sco emits beams of radiation and particles like a beacon.
“The new data shows that the light from AR SCO is highly polarized and the magnetic field controls the radiation of the entire system,” said Professor Tom Marsh.
'AR Sco is like a giant dynamo: it is a magnet the size of Earth, with a field 10,000 stronger than we can create in the laboratory, and it rotates every two minutes – which creates a huge stream of electrically charged particles,' opinion of his colleague, Professor Boris Gansik.
Sources: phys
