A&A 454, 537-542 (2006)
DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361:20052758
L. Zhang1,2 - Z. J. Jiang2
1 - National Astronomical Observatories/Yunnan Observatory,
Chinese Academy of Sciences, PO Box 110, Kunming, China
2 -
Department of Physics, Yunnan University, Kunming, China
Received 25 January 2005 / Accepted 28 March 2006
Abstract
We study the properties of the pulsed component of hard (>2 keV) X-ray emission from pulsars based on the new version of
the outer-gap model proposed by Zhang et al. (2004). In this outer-gap model, high-energy photons emitted by relativistic charged
particles produce e pairs through magnetic-pair production
on their way from the outer gap to the neutron-star surface, and
these pairs produce the bulk of pulsed X-rays by the synchrotron
radiation. The X-ray luminosity of rotation-powered pulsars is a
function not only of the period and magnetic field strength, but
also of the magnetic inclination angle. Application of this model to
the observed pulsed X-ray emission of normal pulsars by ASCA shows a
better consistence. Further, the inclination angles of these pulsars
are estimated using the observed X-ray data, and the predicted
conversion efficiencies of high-energy
-rays for seven confirmed
-ray pulsars are consistent with the observed data.
Key words: pulsars: general - radiation mechanisms: non-thermal - X-rays: stars
It is believed that hard (>2 keV) pulsed X-ray emission from a
pulsar comes from a pulsar magnetosphere and is dominated by
non-thermal radiation. Einstein data indicate a relationship between
the X-ray luminosity
and spin-down power
(erg/s) of
pulsars as
(Seward & Wang 1988).
Observation of ROSAT and ASCA have given the observed
data of more and more rotation-powered pulsars at the X-ray band.
Becker & Trümper (1997) examined the correlation by using 27 spin-down pulsars observed by ROSAT in soft X-ray band
(0.1-2.4 keV) and found that
.
Furthermore,
using the data from ASCA (2-10 keV), Saito (1998) gives the
correlation between the X-ray luminosity and the spin-down
luminosity and concludes that at the hard X-ray band
.
Possenti et al. (2002) have obtained a
relation
through a re-examination of
39 pulsars. Recently, Cheng et al. (2004) investigated hard X-ray
emission from the non-accreting pulsars using ASCA data, including
non-thermal, non-pulsed, and pulsed X-ray components. They collected
23 X-ray pulsars (19 normal X-ray pulsars plus 4 millisecond X-ray
pulsars) that have been resolved with both pulsed and non-pulsed
components obtained from the ASCA, and found that the best fit
between
and
for the pulsed components of these X-ray
pulsars is
.
Two kinds of pulsar models can explain the non-thermal X-ray emission from the pulsars, one is polar cap models (e.g. Zhang & Harding 2000); the other outer gap models (e.g. Halpern & Ruderman 1993; Zhang & Cheng 1997; Wang et al. 1998; Cheng et al. 1998; Hirotani & Shibata 2001). Based on the outer gap model of Zhang & Cheng (1997), the X-ray properties of rotation-powered pulsars were studied in detail (Cheng et al. 1998; Cheng & Zhang 1999). Recently, we revised the outer gap model of Zhang & Cheng (1997) (Zhang et al. 2004); as an approximation, a vacuum solution for the acceleration electric field and a non-vacuum particle density are assumed for explaining the high-energy photon flux.
In this revised model, three important effects have been taken into
account. The first is the effect of the inclination angle ()
in determining the size of the outer gap; the second discards the
assumption that the typical radiation region of the outer gap is at
half of the light cylinder, and an appropriate average over the
entire outer gap is used instead. This effect is particularly
important for old pulsars. When the gap size at this region is
larger than unity, the outer gap is assumed to be turned off; and
the third effect is that the outer gap still exists as long as the
fractional size of the outer gap at the inner boundary is less than
unity. This effect allows some pulsars with the appropriate
combination of
,
P, and B, to maintain their outer gaps
until they are a few million years old. Here, we use a new version
of the outer gap model proposed by Zhang et al. (2004) to study the
properties of the pulsed X-ray component of the normal pulsars, and
compare model results with the observed pulsed X-ray luminosity of
the 19 X-ray pulsars collected by Cheng et al. (2004). In Sect. 2 we
present the outer-gap model for describing non-thermal X-ray
radiation from rotation-powered pulsars. In Sect. 3 we apply the model
to 19 known X-ray pulsars, and compare with the observed data by
ASCA. Finally we briefly give our discussions and conclusions in
Sect. 4.
In the outer-gap model of Zhang et al. (2004), a criterion for the
existence of an outer gap is given in terms of the fractional size
of the outer gap, f. Inside the outer gap, the curvature photons
interact with the thermal X-rays from the stellar surface to produce
e pairs through a photon-photon pair production process,
thereby sustaining the outer gap. This pair-production condition is
,
where
is the average X-ray energy and
the angle
between the emission directions of curvature photons and the thermal
X-rays. In the self-sustained outer gap model of Zhang et al.
(2004), the thermal X-ray come from the bombardment of the
relativistic particles from the outer gap. For a given
-ray
pulsar with period, magnetic field, and inclination angle, f is a
function of P, B, and radial distance r, which is
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Obviously, the present model is a modified version of the original
outer gap model (CHR), i.e. a vacuum gap. On the assumption of
slab-like geometry, CHR solved the Poisson equation and found that
the inner boundary is located close to the null charge surface.
Therefore, the outer gap in the CHR model extends from the null
charge surface to the light cylinder with a constant f. The main
difference in the gap structure between the CHR model and our model
is that the CHR model is a one-dimensional gap structure in which
the vertical height of the outer gap is constant, while our model is
a two-dimensional model in which the gap extends along both the
magnetic field lines and trans-field direction; i.e. f is the
function of position. Based on physical considerations, Zhang et al.
(2004) assumed that -ray luminosity
for any rotation-powered pulsar does not exceed the spin-down power;
that is, the fractional size of the outer gap at any position within
the gap must not be larger than unity,
.
From Eq. (1), f(r,P,B) reaches a minimum at the radius (
)
of the
inner boundary, and then increases with radius for a given pulsar.
For a given pulsar, if
f(r,P,B)<1 at the inner boundary, the range
of the outer gap is from the inner boundary to light cylinder, if
at
,
or to the radius
of some surface
if
f(r,P,B)=1 at
,
where
is the radial distance where
the last open field line is the tangent to the light cylinder(
increases with the magnetic inclination angle,
for aligned
rotator), and
is determined by
.
Therefore, a
self-sustained outer-gap accelerator does not exist if
;
otherwise, the outer gap exists and the radius
of its outer boundary is
.
In our model, the
parallel electric field,
,
can be estimated when fis given
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Figure 1:
Variations of
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Because this model neglected important trans-field effects caused by
the curvature of the field lines that affect the electrodynamics,
Takata et al. (2004) propose a two-dimensional outer gap model with
trans-field structure (also see, Takata et al. 2006). After
complicated calculations (solving Poisson equation, particle's
continuity equations with pair creation model, etc.), they obtained
a vacuum and non-vacuum solution with the dipole magnetic field. For
the vacuum case, their result indicates the same feature as one of
CHR-the inner boundary is located near the null surface-and this
feature does not depend on the location of the outer boundary. In
this two-dimensional model, one important result for the gap
structure is that the gap width relates to trans-field thickness;
i.e. large gap width corresponds to a small trans-field thickness,
at least for the vacuum case, and vice versa (see Figs. 2 and 7
in Takata et al. 2004). Such a feature is similar in our model: a
high
results in a low value for
because f(r,P,B) increases with r for a given pulsar, and vice versa.
Obviously, there are many differences between our model and the
two-dimensional model of Takata et al. (2004). Further detailed study
is needed, and is planned for our next paper.
According to Zhang et al. (2004), the Lorentz factor of the primary
electrons/positrons at the radius r of the outer gap is
In the outer-gap model, half of the primary electrons/positrons in
the outer gap will move toward the star and lose their energy
through curvature radiation. The return particle flux can be
approximated by
,
where
is
the Goldreich-Julian current, which is roughly
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In order to determine the spectrum of non-thermal X-rays from a
pulsar, we need to estimate the minimum (
)
and maximum
(
)
energies of these non-thermal X-rays, which are
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Table 1:
Pulsed X-ray properties of rotation-powered pulsars.
Comparison of model X-ray luminosity (
)
(assuming
)
with observed pulsed X-ray luminosity
(
)
for each X-ray pulsars.
Cheng et al. (2004) have collected the pulsed X-ray data of 23 X-ray
pulsars by ASCA, including 19 normal pulsars and 4 millisecond
pulsars (see their Table 1). Here we only consider the hard-pulsed
X-ray emission of 19 normal pulsars. The best fit of the observed
pulsed X-ray luminosity of the 19 pulsars is
.
Because the fractional
size of the outer gap is the function of magnetic inclination angle
but
is not known well (see Zhang et al. 2004 in
detail), we use the inclination angle as a parameter. In Table 1,
the typical parameters and expected values for 19 pulsars with
are given.
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Figure 2:
Plot
of the X-ray pulsar luminosity vs. the spin-down luminosity for 19 pulsars. The data points are represented by filled symbols (after
Cheng et al. 2004), while model values are represented by open
symbols. Pulsars with detected ![]() ![]() |
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Figure 3: X-ray luminosity of the Vela pulsar versus the inclination angle. Two horizonal dashed lines represent the upper and lower limits of the observed pulsed X-ray luminosity of the Vela pulsar. |
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Figure 4: X-ray luminosity of the Geminga pulsar versus the inclination angle. Two horizonal dashed lines represent the upper and lower limits of the observed pulsed X-ray luminosity of the Geminga pulsar. |
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Table 2:
Comparison of observed and theoretical -ray
luminosity for confirmed high-energy
-ray pulsars.
Once the inclination angle of a pulsar is given, we can estimate its
high-energy -ray emission. Seven pulsars have been confirmed
as emitting high-energy (
100 MeV)
-rays (Hartman et al. 1999; Kaspi et al. 2000), and 19 plausible associations between
the unidentified EGRET sources and the observed radio pulsars have
been found (Camilo et al. 2000; Torres et al. 2001; Kramer et al.
2003). To explain the average properties of high-energy photon
emission from the outer gap, Zhang et al. (2004) assumed that
high-energy emission at a average radius
represents the
typical emission of high-energy photons from a pulsar, the average
radius is
Based on a new version of the outer-gap model proposed by Zhang et al. (2004), we study the pulsed non-thermal X-ray emission from normal pulsars. In this model, the effects of magnetosphere geometry and inclination angle are taken into account, so the fractional size of the outer gap is a function of period, magnetic field strength, inclination angle, and the distance to the neutron star.
In our model, both outward and inward gamma-rays are produced in the outer gaps, but inward and/or outward X-rays depend on the pair- production processes in the outer-magnetosphere. For most pulsars except for the crab-like pulsars, the optical depth due to photon-photon pair production at the typical distance of the outer gap is small, so only a small portion of the outward gamma-rays materializes due to photon-photon pair production and most high-energy outward gamma-rays can escape from the outer gap (see Zhang & Cheng 2002). Because most of the inward gamma-rays materialize due to magnetic pair production for the normal pulsars, in particular for large inclination angles, resulting in inward X-ray luminosity is three order of magnitude larger than the outward ones for the mature pulsars (Cheng et al. 2000), gamma-ray emission are dominated by the outward gamma-rays but non-thermal X-ray emission are dominated by inward X-rays except for the crab-like pulsars.
We applied this model to 19 normal X-ray pulsars whose pulsed X-ray
components in the energy band of 2-10 keV have been detected by
ASCA (see Table 1). For simplicity, we assumed that
in our calculations although different pulsars
may have different inclination angles. The predicted X-ray
luminosity for these pulsars are shown in Fig. 2, where they are
shown to be consistent with the observed data. Further, our model
indicates that X-ray luminosity for each pulsar increases with the
inclination angle of this pulsar (see Figs. 3 and 4), so using X-ray
data of these pulsars and this feature of our model, we estimated
the approximate inclination angles of these pulsars, and then
calculated high-energy
-ray conversion efficiencies for the
confirmed
-ray pulsars, which are consistent with the
observed data (see Table 2).
The differences between the model of Cheng et al. (1998) (also see
Cheng & Zhang 1999) and this model are (i) Cheng et al. (1998) use
the average fractional size of the outer gap, which does not depend
on the inclination angle (i.e. f=f0), but the fractional size of
the outer gap in this model is a function of the inclination angle,
i.e.
;
and (ii) they assume that the cascade
stops when the final energy of synchrotron radiation is
MeV, but here is
.
Although there are these differences,
both models have similar results. The former gives
for the pulsed X-ray luminosity of 14 pulsars (Cheng
& Zhang 1999), the latter gives
for the
pulsed X-ray luminosity of 19 pulsars, indicating that the previous
model for X-ray emission from pulsars (for example Cheng & Zhang
1999) is reasonable.
From Fig. 2, there is a certain difference between the different observed data with model results for each pulsar. According to this model, the difference could possibly come from (i) the actual value of the inclination angle and viewing angle and/or from (ii) ignoring the contribution of the non-thermal X-rays indirectly emitted from the outer gap for the Crab-like pulsars (Cheng et al. 2000; Zhang & Cheng 2000). It should be pointed out that our estimate of pulsar inclination angle depends on the pulsar distance, but some pulsar's distances are not well-determined, which introduces a bigger uncertainty for the estimate of the inclination angle.
Acknowledgements
We thank the anonymous referee for his very constructive comments and K.S. Cheng for his helpful suggestions. This work is partially supported by "Hundred Talents Program of CAS'', Grant for Distinguished Young Scientists from NSFC (10425314), Grand from NSFC (10463002), and Grant from Yunnan Province (2004PY01).