Pulsar Lighthouse
**Pulsars** are often modeled as **rapidly rotating neutron stars** with **misaligned** magnetic axes; **charged** outflows in the **magnetosphere** can produce **coherent** radio emission in a narrow **cone**. When that cone **sweeps** past Earth, we detect **periodic pulses**—the **lighthouse** cartoon. **Millisecond** pulsars are **spun up** by **accretion**; **pulsar timing arrays** compare pulse **arrival times** across years to hunt for **nanohertz gravitational waves**. This simulator is **not** a **plasma** or **general relativistic** magnetosphere model—only rotation, a wedge beam, and a toy pulse profile.
Who it's for: Astrophysics survey after stellar remnants; motivation for timing and GW methods.
Key terms
- Pulsar
- Neutron star
- Lighthouse model
- Magnetosphere
- Pulse period
- Millisecond pulsar
- Timing array
How it works
A **pulsar** is often pictured as a **magnetized** neutron star whose **misaligned** dipole beam **sweeps** past us like a **lighthouse**, producing **periodic** radio pulses when the line of sight crosses the emission cone. **Millisecond** pulsars are spun up by accretion; **timing** arrays search for correlated **nanosecond** signals from **gravitational waves**. This page is a **2D cartoon** of a **rotating wedge** and a crude **pulse profile**, not a magnetosphere simulation.
Key equations
Frequently asked questions
- Are pulses strictly periodic?
- Long-term timing reveals glitches, spin-down, binary Doppler shifts, and dispersion in the interstellar medium—real data pipelines subtract many effects.
- Do all pulsars emit in radio?
- Some are seen chiefly in X-rays or gamma rays; emission mechanisms remain an active research area.
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