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Register a new userSleeping beasts: strong toroidal magnetic field in quiescent magnetars explains their large pulsed fraction
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Added by
Andrei Igoshev Petrovich
Publication date
2020
fields
Physics
and research's language is
English
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Magnetars are neutron stars (NSs) with extreme magnetic fields of strength $5 times 10^{13}$ - $10^{15}$ G. They exhibit transient, highly energetic events, such as short X-ray flashes, bursts and giant flares, all of which are powered by their enormous magnetic energy. Quiescent magnetars have X-ray luminosities between $10^{29}$ and $10^{35}$ erg/s, and are further classified as either persistent or transient magnetars. Their X-ray emission is modulated with the rotational period of the NS, with a typical relative amplitude (so-called pulsed fraction) between 10-58 per cent, implying that the surface temperature is significantly non-uniform despite the high thermal conductivity of the stars crust. Here, we present the first 3D magneto-thermal MHD simulations of magnetars with strong toroidal magnetic fields. We show that these models, combined with ray propagation in curved space-time, accurately describe the light-curves of most transient magnetars in quiescence and allow us to further constrain their rotational orientation. We find that the presence of a strong toroidal magnetic field explains the observed asymmetry in the surface temperature, and is the main cause of the strong modulation of thermal X-ray emission in quiescence.
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A simple model of chiral asymmetry is proposed to interpret the origin of the strong toroidal magnetic field. The electrons relevant to dynamics forming the the field are in a quantume degenerate state with ultra-relativistic Fermi energy. The system is described by Dirac Hartree Fock method using scaled h-bar method. Neutron stars are rotating and have large angular momentum which is formed by cranking model and breaks time reversal. Dirac current is decomposed into convection and spin currents due to Clifford number. The strong toroidal magnetic field is formed by the spin like current resulted by the chiral asymmetry brought about electron capture caused by the parity-violating weak interaction.
We utilize an exact quantum calculation to explore axion emission from electrons and protons in the presence of the strong magnetic field of magnetars. The axion is emitted via transitions between the Landau levels generated by the strong magnetic field. The luminosity of axions emitted by protons is shown to be much larger than that of electrons and becomes stronger with increasing matter density. Cooling by axion emission is shown to be much larger than neutrino cooling by the Urca processes. Consequently, axion emission in the crust may significantly contribute to the cooling of magnetars. In the high-density core, however, it may cause heating of the magnetar.
Accreting black holes launch relativistic collimated jets, across many decades in luminosity and mass, suggesting the jet launching mechanism is universal, robust and scale-free. Theoretical models and general relativistic magnetohydrodynamic (GRMHD) simulations indicate that the key jet-making ingredient is large-scale poloidal magnetic flux. However, its origin is uncertain, and it is unknown if it can be generated in situ or dragged inward from the ambient medium. Here, we use the GPU-accelerated GRMHD code HAMR to study global 3D black hole accretion at unusually high resolutions more typical of local shearing box simulations. We demonstrate that accretion disc turbulence in a radially-extended accretion disc can generate large-scale poloidal magnetic flux in situ, even when starting from a purely toroidal magnetic field. The flux accumulates around the black hole till it becomes dynamically-important, leads to a magnetically arrested disc (MAD), and launches relativistic jets that are more powerful than the accretion flow. The jet power exceeds that of previous GRMHD toroidal field simulations by a factor of 10,000. The jets do not show significant kink or pinch instabilities, accelerate to $gamma sim 10$ over 3 decades in distance, and follow a collimation profile similar to the observed M87 jet.
Axion-like-particles (ALPs) emitted from the core of a magnetar can convert to photons in its magnetosphere. The resulting photon flux is sensitive to the product of $(i)$ the ALP-nucleon coupling $G_{an}$ which controls the production cross section in the core and $(ii)$ the ALP-photon coupling $g_{agamma gamma}$ which controls the conversion in the magnetosphere. We study such emissions in the soft-gamma-ray range (300 keV to 1 MeV), where the ALP spectrum peaks and astrophysical backgrounds from resonant Compton upscattering are expected to be suppressed. Using published quiescent soft-gamma-ray flux upper limits in 5 magnetars obtained with $CGRO$ COMPTEL and $INTEGRAL$ SPI/IBIS/ISGRI, we put limits on the product of the ALP-nucleon and ALP-photon couplings. We also provide a detailed study of the dependence of our results on the magnetar core temperature. We further show projections of our result for future $Fermi$-GBM observations. Our results motivate a program of studying quiescent soft-gamma-ray emission from magnetars with the $Fermi$-GBM.
Nowadays, the analysis of the X-ray spectra of magnetically powered neutron stars or magnetars is one of the most valuable tools to gain insight into the physical processes occurring in their interiors and magnetospheres. In particular, the magnetospheric plasma leaves a strong imprint on the observed X-ray spectrum by means of Compton up-scattering of the thermal radiation coming from the star surface. Motivated by the increased quality of the observational data, much theoretical work has been devoted to develop Monte Carlo (MC) codes that incorporate the effects of resonant Compton scattering in the modeling of radiative transfer of photons through the magnetosphere. The two key ingredients in this simulations are the kinetic plasma properties and the magnetic field (MF) configuration. The MF geometry is expected to be complex, but up to now only mathematically simple solutions (self-similar solutions) have been employed. In this work, we discuss the effects of new, more realistic, MF geometries on synthetic spectra. We use new force-free solutions in a previously developed MC code to assess the influence of MF geometry on the emerging spectra. Our main result is that the shape of the final spectrum is mostly sensitive to uncertain parameters of the magnetospheric plasma, but the MF geometry plays an important role on the angle-dependence of the spectra.
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