Efficiency of Synchrotron Radiation from Rotation-powered Pulsars

Abstract

Synchrotron radiation is widely considered as the origin of the pulsed non-thermal emissions from rotation-powered pulsars in optical and X-ray bands. In this paper, we study the synchrotron radiation emitted by the created electron and positron pairs in the pulsar magnetosphere to constrain on the energy conversion efficiency from the Poynting flux to the particle energy flux. We model two pair creation processes, two-photon collision which efficiently works in young γ-ray pulsars ( 10 6 yr), and magnetic pair creation which is the dominant process to supply pairs in old pulsars ( 10 6 yr). Using the analytical model, we derive the maximum synchrotron luminosity as a function of the energy conversion efficiency. From the comparison with observations, we find that the energy conversion efficiency to the accelerated particles should be an order of unity in the magnetosphere, even though we make a number of the optimistic assumptions to enlarge the synchrotron luminosity. In order to explain the luminosity of the non-thermal X-ray/optical emission from pulsars with low spin-down luminosity L sd 10 34 erg s −1 , non-dipole magnetic field components should be dominant at the emission region. For the γ-ray pulsars with L sd 10 35 erg s −1 , observed γ-ray to X-ray and optical flux ratios are much higher than the flux ratio between curvature and the synchrotron radiations. We discuss some possibilities such as the coexistence of multiple accelerators in the magnetosphere as suggested from the recent numerical simulation results. The obtained maximum luminosity would be useful to select observational targets in X-ray and optical bands.

Toward an X-ray inventory of nearby neutron stars

“…Furthermore, it has been pointed out by several authors that the X-ray emission becomes more efficient at Ė 10 34 −10 35 erg s −1 . This could support polar cap and pair cascade model predictions indicating an increase in electron-positron pair heating luminosity (Harding & Muslimov 2011, 2001 or it could reflect the presence of the dominant non-dipole magnetic field (Kisaka & Tanaka 2017). However, there are too few pulsars with Ė 10 34 ergs s −1 to constrain theoretical models.…”

Towards an X-ray inventory of nearby neutron stars

“…Furthermore, it was pointed out by several authors that the Xray emission becomes more efficient at Ė 10 34 − 10 35 erg s −1 . This could support polar cap and pair cascade model predictions indicating an increase in electron-positron pair heating luminosity (Harding & Muslimov 2011;Harding & Muslimov 2001) or it could reflect the presence of the dominant non-dipole magnetic field (Kisaka & Tanaka 2017). However, there are too few pulsars with Ė 10 34 ergs s −1 to constrain theoretical models.…”

Comprehensive analysis of magnetospheric gaps around Kerr black holes using 1D GRPIC simulations

“…7, and remained active over the whole simulation time. number of created particles beyond the outer boundary, in the same way as in pulsar polar cap cascade models (Timokhin & Harding 2015;Kisaka & Tanaka 2017). Since the number density of soft photons is significantly reduced beyond the outer radius of the soft photon emission zone, R s , it is sufficient to estimate the multiplicity up to this radius.…”