Radiative Transfer in Magnetar Atmospheres

Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics

Scientific paper

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Scientific paper

A great deal of interest has been recently raised in connection with the possibility that soft γ-ray repeaters (SGRs), anomalous X-ray pulsars (AXPs) and, possibly, some isolated neutron stars contain magnetars, i.e. young neutron stars endowed with magnetic fields >~ 1014 G. I will review the basics of radiative transfer problem in the ultra-magnetized regime, with particular emphasis on the quantizing regime in which the cyclotron energy exceeds the electron rest mass. I present calculations of thermal spectra from ultra- magnetized neutron stars for values of the luminosity and magnetic field believed to be relevant to SGRs and AXPs. X-ray spectra exhibit a distinctive absorption feature at the proton cyclotron energy Ec,p~= 0.63 (B/1014 G) keV, that is found to be conspicuous (equivalent width of up to many hundreds eV) and relatively broad (Δ E/E ~0.05-0.2). The detection of such feature is well within the capabilities of present X-ray spectrometers, like the HETGS and METGS on board Chandra. Its observation might provide a pellucid evidence in favor of the existence of magnetars, through the first direct measure of the magnetic field. A comparison with observation follows.

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