SIMBAD references

This study investigates the beam patterns for radiation originating in a hollow column on a slowly rotating neutron star where the Schwarzschild metric is appropriate for calculating photon paths. The beam pattern of a hollow column is the sum of contributions from the two emitting surfaces on the inside and the outside of the column, which combine into a two-component beam pattern. The shapes of the inside beam pattern, the outside beam pattern, and the combined beam pattern are studied for radial cones of different height and width, for isotropic and beamed emission, and for different values of mass and radius of the neutron star. It is argued that the hollow cone model provides an interpretation of the pulse profiles of the X-ray pulsar Centaurus X-3.