Tag

Lense Thirring

All articles tagged with #lense thirring

space22 days ago•70 min saved

Birth of a Magnetar Captured Inside a Brilliant Supernova

Astronomers have for the first time witnessed the birth of a magnetar—an ultra-strongly magnetized neutron star—at the heart of a rare, superluminous supernova (SN 2024afav). The event’s peculiar light curve, including four diminishing “chirps” caused by a Lense–Thirring precession of a disk around the newborn magnetar, provides the first observational link between such births and magnetar-powered superluminous explosions, with the object estimated to spin ~4.2 milliseconds and harbor a magnetic field about 300 trillion times Earth's.

via Live Science|

#general-relativity #lense-thirring #magnetar

space29 days ago•8 min saved

Warped spacetime powers flickering light in newborn magnetars

Astrophysicists propose a magnetar+Lense-Thirring model to explain the zigzag, chirped light curves of Type I superluminous supernovae, like SN 2024afav. A newborn magnetar’s rapid spin twists spacetime; a misaligned, shrinking accretion disk precesses and intermittently blocks or redirects radiation, producing regular brightness bumps and a shrinking period. The model fits the observed data, yields a 4.2-millisecond spin and strong magnetic field, and could unify explanations for several such supernovae; future Rubin Observatory discoveries will test it.

via Ars Technica|

#accretion-disk #frame-dragging #lense-thirring

astronomy-and-astrophysics1 month ago•4 min saved

Magnetar wobble could power the universe's brightest supernovae

Observations of an ultra-bright supernova suggest a wobbling magnetar engine, caused by Lense–Thirring precession, could explain why some supernovae are 10–100 times brighter than expected.

via Nature|

#astronomy #astronomy-and-astrophysics #lense-thirring

science1 month ago•26 min saved

Frame-dragging magnetar powers a superluminous supernova

High-cadence observations of the SLSN-I SN 2024afav reveal chirped light-curve bumps linked to a magnetar central engine with an infalling disk undergoing Lense–Thirring precession. Modeling constrains the magnetar’s spin to about 4.2 ms and its magnetic field to ~1.6×10^14 G, providing the first observational evidence of LT frame-dragging in a magnetar’s environment and supporting magnetar spin-down as the source of extreme luminosity in SLSNe-I.

via Nature|

#accretion-disk #lense-thirring #magnetar