发表机构
Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo; Extreme Light Infrastructure ERIC, ELI Beamlines Facility; Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais; Czech Technical University in Prague; ICRANet; Università degli Studi di Ferrara; Sapienza Univer（圣埃斯皮里图联邦大学; 极轻基础设施欧洲研究基础设施公司，ELI光束线设施; 国家空间研究所; 布拉格捷克技术大学; 国际相对论天体物理中心网络; 费拉拉大学; 萨皮恩扎大学）
机构由 AI 辅助整理，请以论文原文为准。AI 中文总结
本研究提出量子真空切连科夫辐射作为中子星极冠区新的对产生机制，扩展了脉冲星死亡线参数空间，为长周期中子星射电发射提供物理解释，并开辟了用SKA测试非线性QED的新途径。
AI 中文摘要
一些射电脉冲星位于P-Ṗ图中的所谓“死亡谷”内或其下方，这挑战了基于中子星极冠区曲率辐射（CR）和共振逆康普顿散射（RICS）的标准对级联模型。我们表明，量子真空的切连科夫辐射——一种由真空极化实现的强场量子电动力学（QED）现象——在真空间隙模型中构成了一条独特的对产生通道。在该模型中，切连科夫光子发射的加速长度尺度以及随后的光子平均自由程足够短，以确保快速转化为e⁺e⁻对。这一过程作为补充性的对产生通道，即使在经典机制被严重抑制的区域内仍然可行。这导致在P-Ṗ图中出现一组新的死亡线，这些死亡线与CR和RICS死亡谷部分重叠并延伸至其之外，扩大了射电发射中子星的可行参数空间。该结果为先前被认为不活跃的长周期中子星的相干射电发射提供了物理基础，并为利用下一代射电设施（如平方公里阵列）测试非线性QED提供了新窗口。
英文摘要
The presence of some radio pulsars within and below the so-called ``death valley'' in the $P$--$\dot{P}$ diagram challenges the standard pair-cascade models based on curvature radiation (CR) and resonant inverse Compton scattering (RICS) in neutron star polar caps. We show that Cherenkov radiation from the quantum vacuum, a strong-field quantum electrodynamics (QED) phenomenon enabled by vacuum polarization, constitutes a distinct pair-creation channel within the vacuum gap model. Within this model, the acceleration length scale for Cherenkov photon emission and the subsequent photon mean free path are sufficiently short to ensure rapid conversion into $e^+e^-$ pairs. This process acts as a complementary pair-creation channel, remaining viable even in regimes where classical mechanisms become heavily suppressed. This leads to a new set of death lines in the $P$--$\dot{P}$ diagram that partially overlap with and extend beyond the CR and RICS death valleys, enlarging the viable parameter space for radio-emitting neutron stars. The result provides a physical basis for coherent radio emission from long-period neutron stars previously considered inactive, and offers a new window for testing non-linear QED with next-generation radio facilities such as the Square Kilometre Array.
CommentsSubmitted in Communications Physics. 8 pages, 2 figures
