Wave Modes in the Magnetospheres of Pulsars and Magnetars

Abstract

We study the wave propagation modes in the relativistic streaming pair plasma of the magnetospheres of pulsars and magnetars, focusing on the effect of vacuum polarization. We show that the combined plasma and vacuum polarization effects give rise to a vacuum resonance, where ``avoided mode crossing'' occurs between the extraordinary mode and the (superluminous) ordinary mode. When a photon propagates from the vacuum-polarization-dominated region at small radii to the plasma-dominated region at large radii, its polarization state may undergo significant change across the vacuum resonance. We map out the parameter regimes (e.g., field strength, plasma density and Lorentz factor) under which the vacuum resonance occurs and examine how wave propagation is affected by the resonance. Some possible applications of our results are discussed, including high-frequency radio emission from pulsars and possibly magnetars, and optical/IR emission from neutron star surfaces and inner magnetospheres.

arXiv comment19 pages, 10 figures. Accepted by MNRAS

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Cited by in corpus (11)

• Polarization Changes of Pulsars due to Wave Propagation Through Magnetospheres
• The X-Ray Polarization Signature of Quiescent Magnetars: Effect of Magnetospheric Scattering and Vacuum Polarization
• Faraday Rotation in Pulsar Magnetosphere
• Polarization Evolution in A Strongly Magnetized Vacuum: QED Effect and Polarized X-ray Emission from Magnetized Neutron Stars
• Polarized Curvature Radiation in Pulsar Magnetosphere
• Nonlinear QED effects in X-ray emission of pulsars
• Narrow spectra of repeating fast radio bursts: A magnetospheric origin
• Radio emission across the entire rotation phases of pulsars
• 3+1 formulation of light modes in nonlinear electrodynamics
• Radio polarization of millisecond pulsars with multipolar magnetic fields
• Quantum refraction effects in pulsar radio emission