Hulse–Taylor Binary Pulsar’s Gravitational Power Emission

The Hulse–Taylor Binary Pulsar is located at a distance of 21,000 from Earth. The pulsar pair are in-spiraling to one another and are expected to collide and merge in the distant future. The semi-major axis of the system is about 2 million km and as they spiral in toward one another their semi-major axis decreases by about 3 m per year. Using a potential energy argument, the decrease in orbital size is used to calculate approximately the gravitational power emitted by their in-spiraling. The gravitational power emitted is presumably emitted in the form of gravitational waves. Errata: 3 m was shown as the decrease in orbit size in 1 yr and was read incorrectly as “3 minutes”. Andrew R. Ochadlick Jr. received a Ph.D. in Physics from the State University of New York at Albany (SUNYA) and is a career physicist with university, government and industry R&D experience and teaching experience at the undergraduate and graduate level. He may be reached at [email protected] .