Inductive spikes in the Crab Nebula - a theory of gamma-ray flares

Abstract

We show that the mysterious, rapidly variable emission at ~400 MeV observed from the Crab Nebula by the AGILE and Fermi experiments could be the result of a sudden drop in the mass-loading of the pulsar wind. The current required to maintain wave activity in the wind is then carried by very few particles of high Lorentz factor. On impacting the Nebula, these particles produce a tightly beamed, high luminosity burst of hard gamma-rays, similar to those observed. This implies (i) the emission is synchrotron radiation in the toroidal field of the Nebula, and, therefore, linearly polarized and (ii) this mechanism potentially contributes to the gamma-ray emission from other powerful pulsars, such as the Magellanic Cloud objects J0537-6910 and B0540-69.

arXiv comment5 pages, 2 figures, Supplemental material at https://www.dropbox.com/s/bqx8pn1vb7jzcs5/Supplemental.pdf?dl=0

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• A new view on Auger data and cosmogenic neutrinos in light of different nuclear disintegration and air-shower models
• Fermi-type particle acceleration from magnetic reconnection at the termination shock of a relativistic striped wind
• Acceleration of X-ray Emitting Electrons in the Crab Nebula
• The implications of TeV detected GRB afterglows for acceleration at relativistic shocks
• The X-ray modulation of PSR J2032+4127/MT91 213 during the Periastron Passage in 2017
• A systematic study of $\gamma$-ray flares from the Crab Nebula with Fermi-LAT: I. flare detection
• Single Pulse Variability in Gamma-ray Pulsars
• The Crab nebula variability at short timescales with the Cherenkov Telescope Array
• Inductive acceleration of ions in Poynting-flux dominated outflows
• A Very-High-Energy Gamma-Ray View of the Transient Sky