4-8 July 2016
Kramer Law building
Africa/Johannesburg timezone
<a href="http://events.saip.org.za/internalPage.py?pageId=10&confId=86">The Proceedings of SAIP2016</a> published on 24 December 2017

The contribution of photons from the circumstellar disc to gamma-gamma absorption in PSR B1259-63

8 Jul 2016, 10:00
20m
5A (Kramer Law building)

5A

Kramer Law building

UCT Middle Campus Cape Town
Oral Presentation Track D1 - Astrophysics Astrophysics (1)

Speaker

Dr Brian van Soelen (University of the Free State)

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Abstract content <br> &nbsp; (Max 300 words)<br><a href="http://events.saip.org.za/getFile.py/access?resId=0&materialId=0&confId=34" target="_blank">Formatting &<br>Special chars</a>

The gamma-ray binary system PSR B1259-63, consists of a Be star and a pulsar, and is one of only a few know systems where their spectral energy distribution peaks in the gamma-ray regime. It is also the only gamma-ray binary where the nature of the compact object is known. Near periastron, the pulsar pass through the circumstellar disc that surrounds the Be star companion. Observations around periastron show a local minimum in the TeV gamma-ray flux at periastron, when the seed photon energy density, and hence the inverse Compton flux, should be highest. This may be explained through gamma-gamma absorption. Here we show that the contribution of the photons from the circumstellar disc surrounding the Be star significantly modifies the gamma-gamma absorption and may be sufficient to explain the very high energy light curve.

Primary author

Dr Brian van Soelen (University of the Free State)

Co-author

Dr Iurii Sushch (North-West University)

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