An Etymological Dictionary of Astronomy and Astrophysics
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A → neutron star which does not belong to a → binary system, does not have radio emission, and is not surrounded by a progenitor → supernova remnant. INSs appear to be thermally cooling with no emission outside the → soft X-ray band, except for faint optical/UV counterparts. Although these properties are similar to those of → compact central object (CCO)s, they are a distinct class because they lack any observable associated supernova remnant or nebula. There are presently seven confirmed INSs (sometimes referred to as The Magnificent Seven), six of which have measured weakly modulated X-ray pulsations with periods between 3 s and 11 s, much longer than those of CCOs (A. K. Harding, 2013, Front. Phys. 8, 679).

→ isolated; → neutron; → star.

A member of a class of isolated, radio-silent → pulsars with peculiar properties. They show a purely thermal spectrum at X-ray energies with no evidence for a high-energy, power-law component often detected in other → isolated neutron star classes. The X-ray luminosity is 10³¹ - 10³² erg s^-1, fully consistent with surface blackbody emission with temperatures ~ 40-100 eV and (radiation) radii of a few kilometers, as derived from X-ray spectral fits. With the only exception of RX J1856.5-3754, broad absorption features have been found in all XDINSs. These features have energies ~ 300 - 700 eV, equivalent widths of ~ 50 - 150 eV and, as in the case of RX J0720.4-3125, may be variable.

→ X-ray; → dim; → isolated; → neutron; → star.