Searching for curvature pion radiation from protons in strongly magnetized pulsars

Abstract

By using rather conservative estimates based on the simplest polar cap model, we search the ATNF Pulsar Catalogue for strongly magnetized stars that could accelerate relativistic protons up to the curvature pion production threshold. The best candidate turns out to be the 16 ms pulsar J0537-6910, but the corresponding characteristic parameter $\chi =a/m_p$ is yet too small to give origin to observable signals. We show that, for pulsars with period $P\approx 1$ms, a surface polar magnetic field $B\approx 10^{12}$G is required in order to induce detectable curvature pion radiation from accelerated protons in the magnetosphere. Some other emission processes are also considered.

5 pages, aastex style, accepted for publication in Astrophysics & Space Science

References in corpus (5)

• The ATNF Pulsar Catalogue
• Physics of Strongly Magnetized Neutron Stars
• Semiclassical approach to the decay of protons in circular motion under the influence of gravitational fields
• Semiclassical theory of charged pion radiation by nucleons in a strong homogeneous magnetic field
• Lifetime and decay of unstable particles in strong gravitational fields