Breakdown of the Goldreich-Julian Relation in a Neutron Star

Abstract

The electromagnetic field in a magnetized neutron star and the underlying volume charges and currents are found. A general case of a rigidly rotating neutron star with infinite conductivity, arbitrary distribution of the internal magnetic field, arbitrarily changing angular velocity, and arbitrary surface velocity less than the velocity of light is considered. Quaternions are used to describe rotation and determine the magnetic field. It is shown that the charge density is not equal to and can exceed significantly the common Goldreich-Julian density. Moreover, corrections to the magnetic field due to stellar rotation are zero. For a rotating neutron star, twisting magnetic field lines causes charge accumulation and current flows. This fact shows a possible link between changing internal magnetic field topology and observed activity of neutron stars.

15 pages, 1 figure

References in corpus (6)

• The strongest cosmic magnets: Soft Gamma-ray Repeaters and Anomalous X-ray Pulsars
• Models of Pulsar Glitches
• Pulsar Nulling and Mode Changing
• Possible Evidence for Free Precession of a Strongly Magnetized Neutron Star in the Magnetar 4U 0142+61
• Magnetically-driven crustquakes in neutron stars
• PSR B0826-34: Sometimes a rotating radio transient

Cited by in corpus (7)

• Periodic fast radio bursts from forcedly precessing neutron stars, anomalous torque, and internal magnetic field for FRB 180916.J0158+65 and FRB 121102
• Extinct radio pulsars as a source of subrelativistic positrons
• High-energy neutrino signatures from pulsar remnants of binary neutron-star mergers: coincident detection prospects with gravitational waves
• Anomalous magnetic suppression of spin relaxation in a two-dimensional electron gas in a GaAs/AlGaAs quantum well
• Resonant spin amplification meets electron spin resonance in $n$-GaAs
• Nondipole interaction between two uniformly magnetized spheres and its relation to superconducting levitation
• Perfect nonradiating electromagnetic source and its self-action