Revisiting Field Burial by Accretion onto Neutron Stars

doi:10.1007/s12036-017-9465-6

Revisiting Field Burial by Accretion onto Neutron Stars

Mukherjee, Dipanjan

The surface magnetic field strength of millisecond pulsars (MSPs) is found to be about 4 orders of magnitude lower than that of garden variety radio pulsars (with a spin of $âˆ¼$ 0.5â€“5 s and $B âˆ¼ 10^{12} G$ ). The exact mechanism of the apparent reduction of field strength in MSPs is still a subject of debate. One of the proposed mechanisms is burial of the surface magnetic field under matter accreted from a companion. In this article we review the recent work on magnetic confinement of accreted matter on neutron stars poles. We present the solutions of the magneto-static equations with a more accurate equation of state of the magnetically confined plasma and discuss its implications for the field burial mechanism.

Publication:

Journal of Astrophysics and Astronomy

Pub Date:

September 2017

DOI:

10.1007/s12036-017-9465-6

10.48550/arXiv.1709.07332

arXiv:

arXiv:1709.07332

Bibcode:

2017JApA...38...48M

Keywords:

Neutron stars;
magnetic fields;
binaries: general;
Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena

E-Print:

Has appeared in Journal of Astrophysics and Astronomy special issue on 'Physics of Neutron Stars and Related Objects', celebrating the 75th birth-year of G. Srinivasan

ADS

Revisiting Field Burial by Accretion onto Neutron Stars

Abstract