paper

General relativistic effects on pulsar radiation

arXiv:2109.13387

Abstract

The magnetosphere of, and electromagnetic (EM) radiation from pulsars are usually described in the framework of classical electrodynamics. For some pulsars, however, whose emission heights are relatively close to the surface of the neutron star, general relativistic effects might modify the emission from the pulsar. We consider a magnetic dipole model of a pulsar to investigate general relativistic effects on EM radiation from it. Our study includes general relativistic modifications applicable to some significant issues in pulsar astronomy, such as the magnetosphere structure and pulse profiles. We implement computation of the magnetic field in the pulsar magnetosphere from a solution to Maxwell's equations defined in the strongly curved spacetime around a pulsar and find that the field exhibits a strong gravitational effect. The effect modifies curvature radiation of a pulsar, which then leads to modifications of the pulse profiles of radio emission. We take the pulsar PSR J1828-1101 as an example and work out Stokes parameters to simulate the pulse profiles for its main and interpulse emissions theoretically, which exhibit the gravitational effects clearly; however, their testability is beyond the current detection capabilities, with the absolute magnitude of the pulse profiles not being precisely predictable.

arXiv comment20 pages, 6 figures

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