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Study on polarization of high-energy photons from the Crab pulsar

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 Added by Ludwig Trepl
 Publication date 2007
  fields Physics
and research's language is English




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We investigate polarization of high-energy emissions from the Crab pulsar in the frame work of the outer gap accelerator. The recent version of the outer gap, which extends from inside the null charge surface to the light cylinder, is used for examining the light curve, the spectrum and the polarization characteristics, simultaneously. The polarization position angle curve and the polarization degree are calculated to compare with the Crab optical data. We show that the outer gap model explains the general features of the observed light curve, the spectrum and the polarization by taking into account the emissions from inside of the null charge surface and from tertiary pairs, which were produced by the high-energy photons from the secondary pairs. For the Crab pulsar, the polarization position angle curve indicates that the viewing angle of the observer measured from the rotational axis is greater than 90 degrees.



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We investigate polarization of high-energy emissions from the Crab pulsar in the frame work of the outer gap accelerator, following previous works of Cheng and coworkers. The recent version of the outer gap, which extends from inside the null charge surface to the light cylinder, is used for examining the synchrotron radiations from the secondary and the tertiary pairs, which are produced outside the gap. We calculate the light curve, the spectrum and the polarization characteristics, simultaneously, by taking into account gyration motion of the particles. The polarization position angle curve and the polarization degree are calculated to compare with the Crab optical data. We demonstrate that the radiations from inside the null charge surface make outer-wing and off-pulse emissions in the light curve, and the tertiary pairs contribute to bridge emissions. The emissions from the secondary pairs explain the main features of the observed light curve and spectrum. On the other hand, both emissions from inside the null charge surface and from the tertiary pairs are required to explain the optical polarization behavior of the Crab pulsar. The energy dependence of the polarization features is expected by the present model. For the Crab pulsar, the polarization position angle curve indicates that the viewing angle of the observer measured from the rotational axis is greater than $90^{circ}$.
We present a modified outer gap model to study the phase-resolved spectra of the Crab pulsar. A theoretical double peak profile of the light curve containing the whole phase is shown to be consistent with the observed light curve of the Crab pulsar by shifting the inner boundary of the outer gap inwardly to $sim 10$ stellar radii above the neutron star surface. In this model, the radial distances of the photons corresponding to different phases can be determined in the numerical calculation. Also the local electrodynamics, such as the accelerating electric field, the curvature radius of the magnetic field line and the soft photon energy, are sensitive to the radial distances to the neutron star. Using a synchrotron self-Compton mechanism, the phase-resolved spectra with the energy range from 100 eV to 3 GeV of the Crab pulsar can also be explained.
No apparent correlation was found between giant pulses (GPs) and X-ray photons from the Crab pulsar during 5.4 hours of simultaneous observations with the Green Bank Telescope at 1.5 GHz and Chandra X-Ray Observatory primarily in the energy range 1.5-4.5 keV. During the Crab pulsar periods with GPs the X-ray flux in radio emission phase windows does not change more than by +-10% for main pulse (MP) GPs and +-30% for interpulse (IP) GPs. During giant pulses themselves, the X-ray flux does not change more than by two times for MP GPs and 5 times for IP GPs. All limits quoted are compatible with 2-sigma fluctuations of the X-ray flux around the sets of false GPs with random arrival times. The results speak in favor of changes in plasma coherence as the origin of GPs. However, the results do not rule out variations in the rate of particle creation if the particles that emit coherent radio emission are mostly at the lowest Landau level.
POLAR is a dedicated Gamma-Ray Burst polarimeter making use of Compton-scattering which took data from the second Chinese spacelab, the Tiangong-2 from September 2016 to April 2017. It has a wide Field of View of $sim6$ steradians and an effective area of $sim400 cm^2$ at 300 keV. These features make it one of the most sensitive instruments in its energy range (15-500 keV), and therefore capable of almost continuously monitoring persistent sources such as pulsars. Significant folded pulsation from both PSR B0531+21 (the Crab Pulsar) and PSR B1509-58 has been observed. Observations of the Crab Pulsar with POLAR have previously been used for phase-resolved spectroscopy of the Crab Pulsar to calibrate the instrumental responses of POLAR. In this work, we investigate a polarimetric joint-fitting method for observations of the Crab Pulsar with POLAR. Unlike a GRB observation with POLAR, the observations of the Crab Pulsar are complicated by multiple observational datasets during which the polarization plane rotates as well. So before fitting, we have to correct the modulation curves under different datasets, by taking into account the rotations of the Crab Pulsars relative position in the detctors local coordinate, and the changes of detector response in different datasets. Despite these difficulties and the low signal to background for such sources constraining, polarization measurements were possible with the POLAR data. We will present the methodology briefly, which could be applied to any wide FoV polarimeter, and polarization results of the Crab pulsar with POLAR. Finally, the inferred ability of pulsar detection with POLAR-2 (the successor of POLAR) will also be discussed.
Using the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope (WSRT), we obtained high-time-resolution measurements of the full (linear and circular) polarization of the Crab pulsar. Taken at a resolution of 1/8192 of the 34-ms pulse period (i.e., $4.1~mu{rm s}$), the 1.38-GHz linear-polarization measurements are in general agreement with previous lower-time-resolution 1.4-GHz measurements of linear polarization in the main pulse (MP), in the interpulse (IP), and in the low-frequency component (LFC). We find the MP and IP to be linearly polarized at about $24%$ and $21%$, with no discernible difference in polarization position angle. However, and contrary to theoretical expectations and measurements in the visible, we find no evidence for significant variation (sweep) in polarization position angle over the MP, the IP, or the LFC. Although, the main pulse exhibits a small but statistically significant quadratic variation in the degree of linear polarization. We discuss the implications which appear to be in contradiction to theoretical expectations. In addition, we detect weak circular polarization in the main pulse and interpulse, and strong ($approx 20%$) circular polarization in the low-frequency component, which also exhibits very strong ($approx 98%$) linear polarization at a position angle about $40degree$ from that of the MP or IP. The pulse-mean polarization properties are consistent with the LFC being a low-altitude component and the MP and IP being high-altitude caustic components. Nevertheless, current models for the MP and IP emission do not readily account for the observed absence of pronounced polarization changes across the pulse. Finally, we measure IP and LFC pulse phases relative to the MP that are consistent with recent measurements, which have shown that the phases of these pulse components are evolving with time.
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