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Register a new userHigh Energy Radiation from Spider Pulsars
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Added by
Chung Yue Hui David
Publication date
2019
fields
Physics
and research's language is
English
Authors
C. Y. Hui
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The population of millisecond pulsars (MSPs) has been expanded considerably in the last decade. Not only is their number increasing, but also various classes of them have been revealed. Among different classes of MSPs, the behaviour of black widows and redbacks are particularly interesting. These systems consist of an MSP and a low-mass companion star in compact binaries with an orbital period of less than a day. In this article, we give an overview of the high energy nature of these two classes of MSPs. Updated catalogues of black widows and redbacks are presented and their X ray/$gamma$-ray properties are reviewed. Besides the overview, using the most updated eight-year Fermi Large Area Telescope point source catalog, we have compared the $gamma$-ray properties of these two MSP classes. The results suggest that the X-rays and $gamma$-rays observed from these MSPs originate from different mechanisms. Lastly, we will also mention the future prospects of studying these spider pulsars with the novel methodologies as well as upcoming observing facilities.
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The vast majority of pulsars detected by the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) display exponentially cutoff spectra with cutoffs falling in a narrow band around a few GeV. Early spectral modelling predicted spectral cutoffs at energies of up to 100 GeV, assuming curvature radiation. It was therefore not expected that pulsars would be visible in the very-high energy (VHE) regime (>100 GeV). The VERITAS announcement of the detection of pulsed emission from the Crab pulsar at energies up to 400 GeV (and now up to 1.5 TeV as detected by MAGIC) therefore raised important questions about our understanding of the electrodynamics and local environment of pulsars. H.E.S.S. has now detected pulsed emission from the Vela pulsar down to tens of GeV, making this the second pulsar detected by a ground-based Cherenkov telescope. Deep upper limits have also been obtained by VERITAS and MAGIC for the Geminga pulsar. We will review the latest developments in VHE pulsar science, including an overview of the latest observations, refinements, and extensions to radiation models and magnetic field structures, and the implementation of new radiation mechanisms. This will assist us in understanding the VHE emission detected from the Crab pulsar, and predicting the level of VHE emission expected from other pulsars, which is very important for the upcoming CTA.
A part of early type stars is characterised by strong dipole magnetic field that is modified by the outflow of dense wind from the stellar surface. At some distance from the surface (above the Alfven radius), the wind drives the magnetic field into the reconnection in the equatorial region of the dipole magnetic field. We propose that electrons accelerated in these reconnection regions can be responsible for efficient comptonization of stellar radiation producing gamma-ray emission. We investigate the propagation of electrons in the equatorial region of the magnetosphere by including their advection with the equatorial wind. The synchrotron and IC spectra are calculated assuming that a significant part of the wind energy is transferred to relativistic electrons. As an example, the parameters of luminous, strongly magnetized star HD 37022 ($Theta^1$ Ori C) are considered. The IC gamma-ray emission is predicted to be detected either in the GeV energy range by the Fermi-LAT telescope or in the sub-TeV energies by the Cherenkov Telescope Array. However, since the stellar winds are often time variable and the magnetic axis can be inclined to the rotational axis of the star, the gamma-ray emission is expected to show variability with the rotational period of the star and, on a longer time scale, with the stellar circle of the magnetic activity. Those features might serve as tests of the proposed scenario for gamma-ray emission from single, luminous stars.
This is a White Paper in support of the mission concept of the Large Observatory for X-ray Timing (LOFT), proposed as a medium-sized ESA mission. We discuss the potential of LOFT for the study of high-energy radiation from thunderstorms and lightning. For a summary, we refer to the paper.
Synchrotron radiation is widely considered as the origin of the pulsed non-thermal emissions from rotation-powered pulsars in optical and X-ray bands. In this paper, we study the synchrotron radiation emitted by the created electron and positron pairs in the pulsar magnetosphere to constrain on the energy conversion efficiency from the Poynting flux to the particle energy flux. We model two pair creation processes, two-photon collision which efficiently works in young $gamma$-ray pulsars ($lesssim10^6$ yr), and magnetic pair creation which is the dominant process to supply pairs in old pulsars ($gtrsim10^6$ yr). Using the analytical model, we derive the maximum synchrotron luminosity as a function of the energy conversion efficiency. From the comparison with observations, we find that the energy conversion efficiency to the accelerated particles should be an order of unity in the magnetosphere, even though we make a number of the optimistic assumptions to enlarge the synchrotron luminosity. In order to explain the luminosity of the non-thermal X-ray/optical emission from pulsars with low spin-down luminosity $L_{rm sd}lesssim10^{34}$ erg s$^{-1}$, non-dipole magnetic field components should be dominant at the emission region. For the $gamma$-ray pulsars with $L_{rm sd}lesssim10^{35}$ erg s$^{-1}$, observed $gamma$-ray to X-ray and optical flux ratios are much higher than the flux ratio between curvature and the synchrotron radiations. We discuss some possibilities such as the coexistence of multiple accelerators in the magnetosphere as suggested from the recent numerical simulation results. The obtained maximum luminosity would be useful to select observational targets in X-ray and optical bands.
This chapter provides a phenomenological appraisal of the high-energy emission of millisecond pulsars. We comment on some of their properties as a population, as well as consider the especial cases of transitional pulsars, other redbacks, and black widow systems.
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