A note on the cyclic evolution of the pulsar magnetosphere

Abstract

Positive and negative pulsar breaking indices suggest that some fraction of the pulsar spindown torque undergoes a cyclic evolution. The observed strong correlation of `anomalous' breaking indices with pulsar age implies that the characteristic periodicity timescale is in the range 100 to 10,000 years depending on the fraction of the spindown torque that undergoes cyclic evolution, 1 to 100% respectively. We argue that the longest variability timescale is consistent with a neutron star magnetic cycle similar to the solar cycle.

Accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics

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Cited by in corpus (8)

• Rotational evolution of the Crab pulsar in the wind braking model
• A new standard pulsar magnetosphere
• The influence of nondipolar magnetic field and neutron star precession on braking indexes of radiopulsars
• Monotonic and cyclic components of radio pulsars spin-down
• The Equatorial Current Sheet and other interesting features of the Pulsar Magnetosphere
• Refinement of the timing-based estimator of pulsar magnetic fields
• Magnetic helicity in plasma of chiral fermions electroweakly interacting with inhomogeneous matter
• Magnetic helicity in rotating neutron stars