We investigate the effect of a distorted neutron star dipole magnetic field on pulsar pair cascade multiplicity and pair death lines. Using a simple model for a distorted dipole field that produces an offset polar cap, we derive the accelerating electric field above the polar cap in space charge limited flow. We find that even a modest azimuthally asymmetric distortion can significantly increase the accelerating electric field on one side of the polar cap and, combined with a smaller field line radius of curvature, leads to larger pair multiplicity. The death line for producing pairs by curvature radiation moves downward in the P-Pdot diagram, allowing high pair multiplicities in a larger percentage of the radio pulsar population. These results could have important implications for the radio pulsar population, high energy pulsed emission and the pulsar contribution to cosmic ray positrons.
The measurement of the speed of gravitational waves (GWs) is useful to distinguish general relativity from massive gravity. We propose a new model-independent strategy to measure the speed of GWs with the distorted pulsars. Theoretically, when the the GW frequencies from a distorted pulsar are twice the frequencies of EM pulses, they should be emitted at the same time. By measuring the arrival times of these two signals emitted at the same time, the speed of GWs can be calculated with the time difference. Specifically, when the glitches of pulsars are taken into consideration, some pulsars in …
Here we briefly report on first results of self-consistent simulation of non-stationary electron-positron cascades in the polar cap of pulsar using specially developed hybrid PIC/Monte-Carlo numerical code. We consider the case of Ruderman-Sutherland cascade -- when particles cannot be extracted from the surface of the neutrons star.
We study electron-positron pair production in polar caps of energetic pulsars to determine the maximum multiplicity of pair plasma a pulsar can produce under the most favorable conditions. This paper complements and updates our study of pair cascades presented in Timokhin & Harding (2015) with more accurate treatment of the effects of ultra strong B>3x10^{12}G magnetic fields and emission processes of primary and secondary particles. We include pairs produced by curvature and synchrotron radiation photons as well as resonant Compton scattered photons. We develop a semi-analytical model of elec…
We study the efficiency of pair production in polar caps of young pulsars under a variety of conditions to estimate the maximum possible multiplicity of pair plasma in pulsar magnetospheres. We develop a semi-analytic model for calculation of cascade multiplicity which allows efficient exploration of the parameter space and corroborate it with direct numerical simulations. Pair creation processes are considered separately from particle acceleration in order to assess different factors affecting cascade efficiency, with acceleration of primary particles described by recent self-consistent non-s…
Time-dependent cascades of electron-positron pairs are thought to be the main source of plasma in pulsar magnetospheres and a primary ingredient to explain the nature of pulsar radio emission, a longstanding open problem in high-energy astrophysics. During these cascades - positive feedback loops of gamma-ray photon emission, via curvature radiation by TeV electrons and positrons, and pair production -, the plasma self-consistently develops inductive waves that couple to electromagnetic modes capable of escaping the pulsar dense plasma. In this work, we present an analytical description of pai…
Pulsar magnetospheres are thought to be filled with electron-positron plasma generated in pair cascades. The driving mechanism of these cascades is the emission of gamma-ray photons and their conversion into pairs via Quantum Electrodynamics (QED) processes. In this work, we present 2D particle-in-cell simulations of pair cascades in pulsar polar caps with realistic magnetic field geometry that include the relevant QED processes from first principles. Our results show that, due to variation of magnetic field curvature across the polar cap, pair production bursts self-consistently develop an in…
Neutron star magnetic fields may have polar caps (PC) that are offset from the dipole axis, through field-line sweepback near the light cylinder or non-symmetric currents within the star. The effects of such offsets on electron-positron pair cascades are investigated, using simple models of dipole magnetic fields with small distortions that shift the PCs by different amounts or directions. Using a Monte Carlo pair cascade simulation, we explore the changes in the pair spectrum, multiplicity and energy flux across the PC, as well as the trends in pair flux and pair energy flux with spin-down lu…
I argue that the problem of electromagnetically driven electron-positron cascades in magnetospheres of neutron stars must be addressed starting from first principles. I describe a general numerical algorithm for doing self-consistent kinetic simulations of electron-positron cascades - wherein particle acceleration, pair creation and screening of the electric field are calculated simultaneously - and apply it to model the Ruderman and Sutherland cascade in one dimension. I find that pair creation is quite regular and quasi-periodic. In each cycle a blob of ultrarelativistic electron-positron pl…
Observations by the Fermi Large Area Telescope of gamma-ray millisecond pulsar light curves imply copious pair production in their magnetospheres, and not exclusively in those of younger pulsars. Such pair cascades may be a primary source of Galactic electrons and positrons, contributing to the observed enhancement in positron flux above ~10 GeV. Fermi has also uncovered many new millisecond pulsars, impacting Galactic stellar population models. We investigate the contribution of Galactic millisecond pulsars to the flux of terrestrial cosmic-ray electrons and positrons. Our population synthesi…
The stationary axisymmetric force-free magnetosphere of a pulsar is studied analytically. The pulsar equation is solved in the region close to the magnetic axis. Proceeding from linearization of the current function in the axial region, we find the axial magnetic flux function valid at any altitude above the neutron star. This function is used as a starting approximation to develop series for the non-linear pulsar equation in the polar region. Taking into account the quasi-monopolar character of the pulsar magnetic flux at infinity, we obtain unique asymptotic series for the flux and current f…
We present numerical simulations of electron-positron pair cascades in the magnetospheres of magnetic neutron stars for a wide range of surface fields (B_p = 10^{12}--10^{15} G), rotation periods (0.1--10 s), and field geometries. This has been motivated by the discovery in recent years of a number of radio pulsars with inferred magnetic fields comparable to those of magnetars. Evolving the cascade generated by a primary electron or positron after it has been accelerated in the inner gap of the magnetosphere, we follow the spatial development of the cascade until the secondary photons and pair…
Coherent radio emission from pulsars originates from excited plasma waves in an ultra-relativistic and strongly magnetized electron-positron pair plasma streaming along the open magnetic field lines of the pulsar. Traditional coherent radio emission models have relied on instabilities in this pair plasma. Recently alternative models have been suggested. These models appeal to direct coupling of the external electromagnetic field to the superluminal O-mode ($lt_2$ mode) during the time-dependent pair cascade process at the polar gap. The objective of this work is to provide generic constraints …
Recent $γ$-ray observations suggest that the particle acceleration occurs at the outer region of the pulsar magnetosphere. The magnetic field lines in the outer acceleration region (OAR) are connected to the neutron star surface (NSS). If copious electron--positron pairs are produced near the NSS, such pairs flow into the OAR and screen the electric field there. To activate the OAR, the electromagnetic cascade due to the electric field near the NSS should be suppressed. However, since a return current is expected along the field lines through the OAR, the outflow extracted from the NSS alone c…
PSR B1259-63/LS 2883 is a very high energy (VHE; $E > 100$ GeV) γ-ray emitting binary consisting of a 48 ms pulsar orbiting around a Be star with a period of $\sim3.4$ years. The Be star features a circumstellar disk which is inclined with respect to the orbit in such a way that the pulsar crosses it twice every orbit. The circumstellar disk provides an additional field of target photons which may contribute to inverse Compton scattering and γγ-absorption, leaving a characteristic imprint in the observed spectrum of the high energy emission. At GeV energies, the source was detected for the fir…
Recent studies have shown that gamma-ray pulsar light curves are very sensitive to the geometry of the pulsar magnetic field. Pulsar magnetic field geometries, such as the retarded vacuum dipole and force-free magnetospheres have distorted polar caps that are offset from the magnetic axis in the direction opposite to rotation. Since this effect is due to the sweepback of field lines near the light cylinder, offset polar caps are a generic property of pulsar magnetospheres and their effects should be included in gamma-ray pulsar light curve modeling. In slot gap models (having two-pole caustic …
It has recently been demonstrated that self-consistent particle-in-cell simulations of low-obliquity pulsar magnetospheres in flat spacetime show weak particle acceleration and no pair production near the poles. We investigate the validity of this conclusion in a more realistic spacetime geometry via general-relativistic particle-in-cell simulations of the aligned pulsar magnetospheres with pair formation. We find that the addition of frame-dragging effect makes local current density along the magnetic field larger than the Goldreich-Julian value, which leads to unscreened parallel electric fi…
University of Potsdam（波茨坦大学）；Astronomical Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences（捷克科学院天文研究所）；Max-Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy（马克斯·普朗克射电天文研究所）；Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY（德国电子同步辐射中心）；Masaryk University（马萨里克大学）；University of Southampton（南安普顿大学）
Pair cascades from millisecond pulsars (MSPs) may be a primary source of Galactic electrons and positrons that contribute to the increase in positron flux above 10 GeV as observed by PAMELA and AMS-02. The Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) has increased the number of detected gamma-ray MSPs tremendously. Light curve modelling furthermore favours abundant pair production in MSP magnetospheres, so that models of primary cosmic-ray positrons from pulsars should include the contribution from the larger numbers of MSPs and their potentially higher positron output per source. We model the contributio…
We model the evolution of the spin frequency's second derivative $\ddotν$ and the braking index $n$ of radio pulsars with simulations within the phenomenological model of their surface magnetic field evolution, which contains a long-term power-law decay modulated by short-term oscillations. For the pulsar PSR B0329+54, a model with three oscillation components can reproduce its $\ddotν$ variation. We show that the "averaged" $n$ is different from the instantaneous $n$, and its oscillation magnitude decreases abruptly as the time span increases, due to the "averaging" effect. The simulated timi…
We analyse the origin of the magnetic field decay in normal radio pulsars found by us in a recent study. This decay has a typical time scale $\sim 4 \times 10^5$~yrs, and operates in the range $\sim 10^5$~--~few$\times 10^5$~yrs. We demonstrate that this field evolution may be either due to the Ohmic decay related to the scattering from phonons, or due to the Hall cascade which reaches the Hall attractor. According to our analysis the first possibility seems to be more reliable. So, we attribute the discovered field decay mainly to the Ohmic decay on phonons which is saturated at the age few$\…
A sub-population of energetic rotation-powered pulsars show high fluxes of pulsed non-thermal hard X-ray emission. While this MeV pulsar population includes some radio-loud pulsars like the Crab, a significant number have no detected radio or GeV emission, a mystery since gamma- ray emission is a common characteristic of pulsars with high spin-down power. Their steeply rising hard X-ray spectral energy distributions (SEDs) suggest peaks at 0.1 - 1 MeV but they have not been detected above 200 keV. Several upcoming and planned telescopes may shed light on the MeV pulsars. The Neutron star Inter…
The Dragonfly Nebula (G75.2$+$0.1) powered by the young pulsar J2021$+$3651 is a rare pulsar wind nebula (PWN) that shows double tori and polar jets enclosed by a bow-shock structure in X-rays. We present new radio observations of this source taken with the Very Large Array (VLA) at 6 GHz. The radio PWN has an overall size about two times as large as the X-ray counterpart, consisting of a bright main body region in the southwest, a narrow and fainter bridge region in the northeast, and a dark gap in between. The nebula shows a radio spectrum much softer than that of a typical PWN. This could b…
We explore the emission properties of a dissipative pulsar magnetosphere model introduced by Kalapotharakos et al. (2014), comparing its high energy light curves and spectra, due to curvature radiation, with data collected by the Fermi LAT. The magnetosphere structure is assumed to be near the force-free solution. The accelerating electric field, inside the light-cylinder, is assumed to be negligible, while outside the light-cylinder it rescales with a finite conductivity (σ). In our approach we calculate the corresponding high energy emission by integrating the trajectories of test particles …
Pulsars are believed to be sources of relativistic electrons and positrons. The abundance of detections of gamma-ray millisecond pulsars by Fermi Large Area Telescope coupled with their light curve characteristics that imply copious pair production in their magnetospheres, motivated us to investigate this old pulsar population as a source of Galactic electrons and positrons and their contribution to the enhancement in cosmic-ray positron flux at GeV energies. We use a population synthesis code to predict the source properties (number, position, and power) of the present-day Galactic millisecon…
The observations of gamma-ray emission from pulsars with the Fermi-LAT detector and the detection of the Crab pulsar with the VERITAS array of Cherenkov telescopes at energies above 100 GeV make it unlikely that curvature radiation is the main source of photons above GeV energies in the Crab and many other pulsars. We outline a model in which the broad UV-X-ray component and the very high energy γ-ray emission of pulsars are explained within the Synchrotron-Self-Compton (SSC) framework. We argue that the bulk of the observed radiation is generated by the secondary plasma, which is produced in …
Results of a simulation of synchrotron-self Compton (SSC) emission from a rotation-powered pulsar are presented. The radiating particles are assumed to be both accelerated primary electrons and a spectrum of electron-positron pairs produced in cascades near the polar cap. They follow trajectories in a slot gap using 3D force-free magnetic field geometry, gaining pitch angles through resonant cyclotron absorption of radio photons, radiating and scattering synchrotron emission at high altitudes out to and beyond the light cylinder. Full angular dependence of the synchrotron photon density is sim…
We study the propagation effects of radio waves in a pulsar magnetosphere, composed of relativistic electron-positron pair plasmas streaming along the magnetic field lines and corotating with the pulsar. We critically examine the various physical effects that can potentially influence the observed wave intensity and polarization, including resonant cyclotron absorption, wave mode coupling due to pulsar rotation, wave propagation through quasi-tangential regions (where the photon ray is nearly parallel to the magnetic field) and mode circularization due to the difference in the electron/positro…
Pulsars, or more generally rotation powered neutron stars, are excellent factories of antimatter in the Galaxy, in the form of pairs of electrons and positrons. Electrons are initially extracted from the surface of the star by the intense rotation induced electric fields and later transformed into electron-positron pairs through electromagnetic cascading. Observations of Pulsar Wind Nebulae (PWNe) show that cascades in the pulsar magnetosphere must ensure pair multiplicities of order $10^{4}-10^{5}$. These pairs finally end up as part of the relativistic magnetized wind emanating from the puls…
We have programmed a full simulation of the open field lines above the polar cap of a magnetized pulsar, using time dependent Particle In Cell (PIC) numerical code (Birdsall and Langdon 1991). We consider the case of free ejection of electrons from the star surface, a Space Charge Limited Flow (SCLF) model. We report here the first results of the simulation. Electrons are accelerating along the open field lines to the flat space-time SCLF maximum Lorentz factor prediction, with oscillation pattern. Than we add the General Relativistic Frame Dragging correction that provide the particles the hi…
We analyze the statistics of pulse arrival times in fast radio burst (FRB) 121102 and demonstrate that they are remarkably similar to statistics of magnetar high-energy short bursts. Motivated by this correspondence, we propose that repeating FRBs are generated during short bursts in the closed field line zone of magnetar magnetospheres via a pulsar-like emission mechanism. Crustal slippage events dislocate field line foot points, initiating intense particle acceleration and pair production, giving rise to coherent radio emission similar to that generated near pulsar polar caps. We argue that …
It has long been unclear if the small-scale magnetic structures on the neutron star (NS) surface could survive the fall-back episode. The study of the Hall cascade (Cumming, Arras and Zweibel 2004; Wareing and Hollerbach 2009) hinted that energy in small scales structures should dissipate on short timescales. Our new 2D magneto-thermal simulations suggest the opposite. For the first $\sim$10 kyrs after the fall-back episode with accreted mass $10^{-3} M_\odot$, the observed NS magnetic field appears dipolar, which is insensitive to the initial magnetic topology. In framework of the Ruderman & …
Pulsar winds have longstanding problems in energy conversion and pair cascade processes which determine the magnetization $σ$, the pair multiplicity $κ$ and the bulk Lorentz factor $γ$ of the wind. We study induced Compton scattering by a relativistically moving cold plasma to constrain wind properties by imposing that radio pulses from the pulsar itself are not scattered by the wind as was first studied by Wilson & Rees. We find that relativistic effects cause a significant increase or decrease of the scattering coefficient depending on scattering geometry. Applying to the Crab, we consider u…
Extending the Pulsar radio population through Quantum Vacuum Cherenkov Emission
Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo（圣埃斯皮里图联邦大学）；Extreme Light Infrastructure ERIC, ELI Beamlines Facility（极轻基础设施欧洲研究基础设施公司，ELI光束线设施）；Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais（国家空间研究所）；Czech Technical University in Prague（布拉格捷克技术大学）；ICRANet（国际相对论天体物理中心网络）；Università degli Studi di Ferrara（费拉拉大学）；Sapienza Univer（萨皮恩扎大学）
Constraints on light QCD and CP-violating axions from the death line of rotation-powered pulsars
University of Oxford（牛津大学）；Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY（德国电子同步加速器）；Universität Hamburg（汉堡大学）；CERN（欧洲核子研究中心）；INFN Roma1（意大利国家核物理研究所罗马第一分所）；Weizmann Institute of Science（魏茨曼科学研究所）；Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne（洛桑联邦理工学院）；Institut de Física d’Altes Energies (IFAE)（高等物理研究所）；Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology (BIST)（巴塞罗那科学技术研究所）；Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton（普林斯顿高等研究院）；University of Maryland, College Park（马里兰大学帕克分校）；Johns Hopkins University（约翰斯·霍普金斯大学）
Transient narrowband radio bursts from the magnetar 1E 1547.0-5408
Swinburne University of Technology（斯威本科技大学）；York University（约克大学）；South African Radio Astronomy Observatory（南非射电天文观测台）；Los Alamos National Laboratory（洛斯阿拉莫斯国家实验室）；CSIRO（联邦科学与工业研究组织）；NASA Goddard Space Flight Center（美国宇航局戈达德太空飞行中心）；University of Maryland Baltimore County（马里兰大学巴尔的摩县分校）
We analyze the gamma-ray halo around stacked AGNs reported in Ap.J.Lett., 2010, 722, L39. First, we show that the angular distribution of gamma-rays around the stacked AGNs is consistent with the angular distribution of the gamma-rays around the Crab pulsar, which is a point source for Fermi/LAT. This makes it unlikely that the halo is caused by an electromagnetic cascade of TeV photons in the intergalactic space. We then compare the angular distribution of gamma-rays around the stacked AGNs with the point-spread function (PSF) of Fermi/LAT and confirm the existence of an excess above the PSF.…
