Evidence for Heating of Neutron Stars by Magnetic Field Decay

Abstract

We show the existence of a strong trend between neutron star surface temperature and the dipolar component of the magnetic field extending through three orders of field magnitude, a range that includes magnetars, radio-quiet isolated neutron stars, and many ordinary radio pulsars. We suggest that this trend can be explained by the decay of currents in the crust over a time scale of few Myr. We estimate the minimum temperature that a NS with a given magnetic field can reach in this interpretation.

4 pages, 1 figures, version accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. Lett

References in corpus (2)

• Dense Matter in Compact Stars: Theoretical Developments and Observational Constraints
• Magnetars as cooling neutron stars with internal heating

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