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Pulsar Death at an Advanced Age

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 April 2016

Jonathan Arons
Jonathan Arons*
Affiliation:
Department of Astronomy, Department of Physics and Theoretical Astrophysics Center, University of California at Berkeley, 601 Campbell Hall, Berkeley, CA 94720-3411, [email protected]

Abstract

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I summarize the theory of acceleration of non-neutral particle beams by starvation electric fields along the polar magnetic field lines of rotation powered pulsars, including the effect of dragging of inertial frames which dominates the acceleration of a space charge limited beam. I apply these results to a new calculation of the radio pulsar death line, under the hypotheses that pulsar “death” corresponds to cessation of pair creation over the magnetic poles and that the magnetic field has a locally dipolar topology. The frame dragging effect in star centered dipole geometry does improve comparison of the theory with observation, but an unacceptably large conflict between obsrvation and theory still persists. Offsetting the dipole improves the comparison, but a fully satisfactory theory requires incorporating magnetic conversion of inverse Compton gamma rays, created by scattering thermal photons from the surface of old neutron stars (t > 108 years) kept warm (T ≥ 105 K) by friction between the rotating core and the crust. The result is a “death valley” for pulsars; offsets of the dipole center from the stellar center in the oldest stars ~ (0.7 − 0.8)R* suffice. The resulting theory predicted the existence of rotation powered pulsars with these advanced ages, a prediction confirmed by the recent discovery that PSR J2144-3933 actually has a rotation period of 8.5 seconds.

Type
Part 6. Emission and Plasma Theory
Information
International Astronomical Union Colloquium , Volume 177: Pulsar Astronomy - 2000 and Beyond , 2000 , pp. 449 - 454
Copyright
Copyright © Astronomical Society of the Pacific 2000

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