Ioffe Physical Technical Institute
Department of Theoretical Astrophysics
Neutron Star Group

## Optical photometry of the PSR B0656+14 and its neighborhood

A.B. Koptsevich (1,2,3), G.G. Pavlov (2), S.V. Zharikov (3,4), V.V. Sokolov (3), Yu.A. Shibanov (1), V.G. Kurt (5)
((1) Ioffe Inst., Russia; (2) PSU; (3) SAO RAS, Russia; OANIA UNAM, Mexico; (5) ASC RAS, Russia)

We present the results of the broad-band photometry of the nearby middle-aged radio pulsar PSR B0656+14 and its neighborhood obtained with the 6-meter telescope of the SAO RAS and with the Hubble Space Telescope. The broad-band spectral flux $F_\nu$ of the pulsar decreases with increasing frequency in the near-IR range and increases with frequency in the near-UV range. The increase towards UV can be naturally interpreted as the Rayleigh-Jeans tail of the soft thermal component of the X-ray spectrum emitted from the surface of the cooling neutron star. Continuation of the power-law component, which dominates in the high-energy tail of the X-ray spectrum, to the IR-optical-UV frequencies is consistent with the observed fluxes. This suggests that the non-thermal pulsar radiation may be of the same origin in a broad frequency range from IR to hard X-rays. We also studied 4 objects detected in the pulsar's 5" neighborhood.

The paper has been published in Astronomy & Astrophysics 2001, 370, 1004
Full text is available here ( 780 K)

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Last updated on May 31, 2001, by Alexey Koptsevich