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NSMAXG: A new magnetic neutron star spectral model in XSPEC

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2014

Wynn C. G. Ho*
Affiliation:
Mathematical Sciences and STAG, University of Southampton, Southampton, SO17 1BJ, UK email: [email protected]
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Abstract

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The excellent sensitivity of X-ray telescopes, such as Chandra and XMM-Newton, is ideal for the study of cooling neutron stars, which can emit at these energies. In order to exploit the wealth of information contained in the high quality data, a thorough knowledge of the radiative properties of neutron star atmospheres is necessary. A key factor affecting photon emission is magnetic fields, and neutron stars are known to have strong surface magnetic fields. Here I briefly describe our latest work on constructing magnetic (B ≥ 1010 G) atmosphere models of neutron stars and the NSMAXG implementation of these models in XSPEC. Our results allow for more robust extractions of neutron star parameters from observations.

Type
Contributed Papers
Copyright
Copyright © International Astronomical Union 2014 

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