Within the magnetospheric radius, the geometry of accretion flow in X-ray pulsars is shaped by a strong magnetic field of a neutron star. Starting at the magnetospheric radius, accretion flow follows field lines and reaches the stellar surface in small regions located close to the magnetic poles of a star. At low mass accretion rates, the dynamic of the flow is determined by gravitational attraction and rotation of the magnetosphere due to the centrifugal force. At the luminosity range close to the Eddington limit and above it, the flow is additionally affected by the radiative force. We construct a model simulating accretion flow dynamics over the magnetosphere, assuming that the flow strictly follows field lines and is affected by gravity, radiative and centrifugal forces only. The magnetic field of a NS is taken to be dominated by the dipole component of arbitrary inclination with respect to the accretion disc plane. We show that accretion flow becomes unstable at high mass accretion rates and tends to fluctuate quasi-periodically with a typical period comparable to the free-fall time from the inner disc radius. The inclination of a magnetic dipole with respect to the disc plane and strong anisotropy of X-ray radiation stabilise the mass accretion rate at the poles of a star, but the surface density of material covering the magnetosphere fluctuates even in this case.
We have conducted the largest investigation to date into the origin of phase resolved, apparent RM variations in the polarized signals of radio pulsars. From a sample of 98 pulsars based on observations at 1.4 GHz with the Parkes radio telescope, we carefully quantified systematic and statistical errors on the measured RMs. A total of 42 pulsars showed significant phase resolved RM variations. We show that both magnetospheric and scattering effects can cause these apparent variations. There is a clear correlation between complex profiles and the degree of RM variability, in addition to deviati…
We present a model for a super-Eddington accretion disc around a magnetized neutron star taking into account advection of heat and the mass loss by the wind. The model is semi-analytical and predicts radial profiles of all basic physical characteristics of the accretion disc. The magnetospheric radius is found as an eigenvalue of the problem. When the inner disc is in radiation-pressure-dominated regime but does not reach its local Eddington limit, advection is mild, and the radius of the magnetosphere depends weakly on the accretion rate. Once approaching the local Eddington limit, the disc b…
In the present work we consider energy accumulation mechanism in relativistic electron-positron plasma in the magnetosphere of pulsars. Waves propagating almost across the magnetic field lines are generated that accumulate the energy of plasma particles, as the waves stay significantly long in the resonance region. The accumulated energy is transmitted in the parallel direction of the magnetic field lines as soon as the non-linear plasma processes start to operate. It is suggested that exit of the accumulated energy via waves propagating along the magnetic field lines matching the viewing angl…
X-ray flux and pulse period fluctuations in an accretion-powered pulsar convey important information about the disk-magnetosphere interaction. It is shown that simultaneous flux and period measurements can be analysed with a Kalman filter based on the standard magnetocentrifugal accretion torque to generate accurate time-dependent estimates of three hidden state variables, which fluctuate stochastically and cannot be measured directly: the mass accretion rate, the Maxwell stress at the disk-magnetosphere boundary, and the radiative efficiency of accretion onto the stellar surface. The inferred…
Magnetospheric flows in X-ray pulsars II: Heating, cooling and ionization degree at sub-critical accretion
Mullard Space Science Laboratory, University College London（伦敦大学学院穆拉德空间科学实验室）；Astrophysics, Department of Physics, University of Oxford（牛津大学物理系天体物理学）；Ioffe Institute（约费研究所）；Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences（俄罗斯科学院空间研究所）；Institut für Astronomie und Astrophysik, Kepler Center for Astro and Particle Physics, Universität Tübingen（蒂宾根大学天文学与天体物理研究所、开普勒天文与粒子物理中心）；Department of Astronomy, Yale University（耶鲁大学天文学系）；Department of Physics and Astronomy, FI-20014 University of Turku（图尔库大学物理与天文学系）
PSR B1828-11 is a young pulsar once thought to be undergoing free precession and recently found instead to be switching magnetospheric states in tandem with spin-down changes. Here we show the two extreme states of the mode-changing found for this pulsar and comment briefly on its interpretation.
The canonical pulsar magnetosphere contains a bubble of closed magnetic field lines that is separated from the open lines by current sheets, and different branches of such sheets intersect at a critical line on the light cylinder (LC). The LC is located far away from the neutron star, and the pulsar's intrinsic magnetic field at that location is much weaker than the commonly quoted numbers applicable to the star surface. The magnetic field surrounding supermassive black holes that reside in galactic nuclei is of comparable or greater strength. Therefore, when the pulsar travels inside such reg…
Expanding on the comment by Lyne et al (2017), that intermittent pulsars tend to congregate near a stripe in the logarithmic period versus period-derivative diagram, representing a small range of polar cap electric potential, as well as the fact (already apparent in their Fig.~7, but not explicitly stated there) that high-fraction nulling pulsars also tend to reside within this and an additional stripe, we make the observation that the two stripes further match the "death lines" for double and single-pole interpulses, associated with nearly orthogonal and aligned rotators respectively. These e…
A number of low-mass millisecond pulsar (MSP) binaries in their rotation-powered state exhibit double-peaked X-ray orbital modulation centered at inferior pulsar conjunction. This state, which has been known to persist for years, has recently been interpreted as emission from a shock that enshrouds the pulsar. However, the pressure balance for such a configuration is a crucial unresolved issue. We consider two scenarios for pressure balance: a companion magnetosphere and stellar mass loss with gas dominance. It is found that the magnetospheric scenario requires several kilogauss poloidal field…
We computed accurate atmosphere models of rotation-powered millisecond pulsars in which the polar caps of a neutron star (NS) are externally heated by magnetospheric return currents. The external ram pressure, energy losses, and stopping depth of the penetrating charged particles were computed self-consistently with the atmosphere model, instead of assuming a simplified deep-heated atmosphere in radiative equilibrium. We used exact Compton scattering formalism to model the properties of the emergent X-ray radiation. The deep-heating approximation was found to be valid only if most of the heat …
Eight pulsars have low braking indices, which challenge the magnetic dipole braking of pulsars. 222 pulsars and 15 magnetars have abnormal distribution of frequency second derivatives, which also make contradiction with classical understanding. How neutron star magnetospheric activities affect these two phenomena are investigated by using the wind braking model of pulsars. It is based on the observational evidence that pulsar timing is correlated with emission and both aspects reflect the magnetospheric activities. Fluctuations are unavoidable for a physical neutron star magnetosphere. Young p…
We report on the spectral behavior of the first Galactic ultraluminous X-ray pulsar Swift J0243.6+6124 with NuSTAR observations during its 2017-2018 outburst. At sub-Eddington levels, the source spectrum is characterized by three emission components, respectively from the accretion column, the hot spot, and a broad iron line emission region. When the source is above the Eddington limit, the hot spot temperature increases and the spectrum features two more blackbody components. One blackbody component has a radius of 10-20 km and is likely originated from the top of the accretion column. The ot…
Magnetospheric birefringence breaks the rotating-vector model and depolarises X-ray pulsars
University College London（伦敦大学学院）；University of Oxford（牛津大学）；University of Turku（图尔库大学）；University of Hertfordshire（赫特福德大学）；University of Padova（帕多瓦大学）
The low mass X-ray binary 2A 1822-371 is an eclipsing system with an accretion disc corona and with an orbital period of 5.57 hr. The primary is an 0.59 s X-ray pulsar with a proposed strong magnetic field of 10^10-10^12 G. In this paper we study the spin evolution of the pulsar and constrain the geometry of the system. We find that, contrary to previous claims, a thick corona is not required, and that the system characteristics could be best explained by a thin accretion outflow due to a super-Eddington mass transfer rate and a geometrically thick inner accretion flow. The orbital, spectral a…
Revealing the Unseen: The Discovery of Long-Awaited Radiation from the Intermittent Pulsar PSR B1931+24
Kashi University（喀什大学）；Xinjiang Astronomical Observatory, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院新疆天文台）；Central China Normal University（华中师范大学）；University of Manchester（曼彻斯特大学）；Max-Planck Institut für Radioastronomie（马克斯·普朗克射电天文研究所）
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 …
Most current pulsar emission models assume photon production and emission within the magnetosphere. Low frequency radiation is preferentially produced in the vicinity of the polar caps whereas the high-energy tail is shifted to regions closer but still inside the light-cylinder. We conducted a systematic study of the merit of several popular radiation sites like the polar cap, the outer gap and the slot gap. We computed sky maps emanating from each emission site according to a prescribed distribution function for the emitting particles made of an electron/positron mixture. Calculations are per…
Recent modeling of NICER observations of thermal X-ray pulsations from the surface of the isolated millisecond pulsar PSR J0030+0451 suggests that the hot emitting regions on the pulsar's surface are far from antipodal, which is at odds with the classical assumption that the magnetic field in the pulsar magnetosphere is predominantly that of a centered dipole. Here, we review these results and examine previous attempts to constrain the magnetospheric configuration of PSR J0030+0451. To the best of our knowledge, there is in fact no direct observational evidence that PSR J0030+0451's magnetic f…
We report the discovery of the bright reflected emission component in the super-Eddington state of the ULX pulsar Swift J0243.6+6124, based on the NuSTAR observations of the source during its 2017 outburst. The flux of the reflected emission is weakly variable over the pulsar phase while the direct emission shows significantly larger pulsation amplitude. We propose that in this system the neutron star finds itself in the centre of the well formed by the inner edge of the geometrically thick super-Eddington accretion disc truncated by the magnetic field of the pulsar. The aspect ratio of the we…
We present results of the analysis of super-Eddington flares registered from the X-ray pulsar LMC X-4 by the NuSTAR observatory in the broad energy range 3-79 keV. The pulsar spectrum is well described by the thermal comptonization model both in a quiescent state and during flares, when the peak luminosity reaches values $L_{\rm x} \sim (2-4)\times10^{39}$ erg s$^{-1}$. An important feature, found for the first time, is that the order of magnitude increase in the luminosity during flares is observed primarily at energies below 25-30 keV, whereas at higher energies (30-70 keV) the shape of the …
The measured spin-down rates in quiescence of the transient accreting millisecond pulsars IGR J00291+5934, XTE J1751-305, SAX J1808.4-3658, and Swift J1756.9-2508 have been used to estimate the magnetic moments of these objects assuming standard magnetic dipole braking. It is shown that this approach leads to an overestimate, if the amount of residual accretion is enough to distort the magnetosphere away from a force-free configuration, through magnetospheric mass loading or crushing, so that the lever arm of the braking torque migrates inside the light cylinder. We derive an alternative spin-…
The Neutron-star Interior Composition ExploreR (NICER) is collecting data to measure the radii of neutron stars by observing the pulsed emission from their surfaces. The primary targets are isolated, rotation-powered pulsars, in which the surface polar caps are heated by bombardment from magnetospheric currents of electrons and positrons. We investigate various stopping mechanisms for the beams of particles that bombard the atmosphere and calculate the heat deposition, the atmospheric temperature profiles, and the energy spectra and beaming of the emerging radiation. We find that low-energy pa…
Diffuse neutrino flux from coronal magnetospheric current sheets of accreting black holes
National and Kapodistrian University of Athens（雅典国立卡波迪斯特里安大学）；Institute of Accelerating Systems and Applications（加速系统与应用研究所）；Columbia University（哥伦比亚大学）；Flatiron Institute（平顿研究所）
In this study we present a method to estimate posterior distributions for standard accretion torque model parameters and binary orbital parameters for X-ray binaries using a nested sampling algorithm for Bayesian Parameter Estimation. We study the spin evolution of two Be X-ray binary systems in the Magellanic Clouds, RX J0520.5-6932 and RX J0209-7427, during major outbursts, in which they surpassed the Eddington-limit. Moreover, we apply our method to the recently discovered Swift J0243.6+6124; the only known Galactic pulsating ultra-luminous X-ray source. This is an excellent candidate for s…
Measuring the magnetic dipole moment and magnetospheric fluctuations of accretion-powered pulsars in the Small Magellanic Cloud with an unscented Kalman filter
提出用无迹卡尔曼滤波器跟踪 X 射线流量与脉冲周期时间序列，打破辐射效率和吸积率简并，估计小麦哲伦云 24 个脉冲星的磁偶极矩及盘—磁层涨落。
The estimate of the magnetospheric radius in a disk-fed neutron star X-ray binary is a long standing problem in high energy Astrophysics. We review the magnetospheric radius calculations in the so-called magnetically threaded disk model, comparing the simplified approach originally proposed by Ghosh & Lamb (1979) with the revised version proposed by Wang (1987), Wang (1995), and Wang (1997). We show that for a given set of fixed parameters (assuming also a comparable screening factor of the neutron star magnetic field by the currents induced on the disk surface) the revised magnetically thread…
The rotation powered pulsar loses angular momentum at a rate of the rotation power divided by the angular velocity $Ω_*$. This means that the length of the lever arm of the angular momentum extracted by the photons, relativistic particles and wind must be on average $c/Ω_*$, which is known as the light cylinder radius. Therefore, any deposition of the rotation power within the light cylinder causes insufficient loss of angular momentum. In this paper, we investigate two cases of this type of energy release: polar cap acceleration and Ohmic heating in the magnetospheric current inside the star.…
We consider the three currently known pulsing ultraluminous X--ray sources (PULXs). We show that in one of them the observed spinup rate requires super--Eddington accretion rates at the magnetospheric radius, even if magnetar--strength fields are assumed. In the two other systems a normal--strength neutron star field implies super--Eddington accretion at the magnetosphere. Adopting super--Eddington mass transfer as the defining characteristic of ULX systems, we find the parameters required for self--consistent simultaneous fits of the luminosities and spinup rates of the three pulsed systems. …
We present a timing analysis of multiple XMM-Newton and NuSTAR observations of the ultra-luminous pulsar NGC 7793 P13 spread over its 65d variability period. We use the measured pulse periods to determine the orbital ephemeris, confirm a long orbital period with P_orb = 63.9 (+0.5,-0.6) d, and find an eccentricity of e <= 0.15. The orbital signature is imprinted on top of a secular spin-up, which seems to get faster as the source becomes brighter. We also analyse data from dense monitoring of the source with Swift and find an optical photometric period of 63.9 +/- 0.5 d and an X-ray flux perio…
{\it NuSTAR} has detected pulsations from the ultraluminous X-ray source X-2 in M82 and archival {\it Chandra} observations have given us a good idea of its duty cycle. The newly discovered pulsar exhibited at least 4 super-Eddington outbursts in the past 15 years but, in its lowest-power state, it radiates just below the Eddington limit and its properties appear to be typical of high-mass X-ray binaries. M82 X-2 has been described as a common neutron star with a 1~TG magnetic field that occasionally accretes above the Eddington rate and as a magnetar-like pulsar with a 10-100~TG magnetic fiel…
