English

A note on the cyclic evolution of the pulsar magnetosphere

Astrophysics 2009-11-13 v1

Abstract

Positive and negative pulsar breaking indices suggest that some fraction of the pulsar spindown torque undergoes a cyclic evolution. The observed strong correlation of `anomalous' breaking indices with pulsar age implies that the characteristic periodicity timescale is in the range 100 to 10,000 years depending on the fraction of the spindown torque that undergoes cyclic evolution, 1 to 100% respectively. We argue that the longest variability timescale is consistent with a neutron star magnetic cycle similar to the solar cycle.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0709.3957,
  title  = {A note on the cyclic evolution of the pulsar magnetosphere},
  author = {Ioannis Contopoulos},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0709.3957},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

Accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics

R2 v1 2026-06-21T09:21:38.610Z