Probing the X-ray emission mechanisms of recycled-pulsars: PSR J0034-0534

The Xray emission mechanisms of millisecond pulsars are still poorly known,despite ten mspulsars have been detected so far. The recently discovered1.8 ms pulsar PSRJ00340534 (Bailes et al.virgul1994) has high spindown power,only 1 kpc from us, low column density, thus making it an excellent candidatefor studying Xray emission from ms pulsars. We propose for a modest exposureof 30 ks, aiming at detecting the expected ms pulsation, discriminatingbetween powerlaw and thermal polarcap spectral models, thus gainingsignificant insights into physical environments and processes goingonin the neutron star magnetosphere. Such study is possible because theunprecedented high throughput nature of XMM. truncated!, Please see actual data for full text [truncated!, Please see actual data for full text]