Rotating neutron stars without light cylinders
High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
2022-04-13 v1
Abstract
We find a class of twisted and differentially rotating neutron star magnetospheres that do not have a light cylinder, generate no wind and thus do not spin-down. The magnetosphere is composed of embedded differentially rotating flux surfaces, with the angular velocity decreasing as (equivalently, becoming smaller at the foot-points closer to the axis of rotation). For each given North-South self-similar twist profile there is a set of self-similar angular velocity profiles (limited from above) with a "smooth", dipolar-like magnetic field structure extending to infinity. For spin parameters larger than some critical value, the light cylinder appears, magnetosphere opens up, and the wind is generated.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2112.03313,
title = {Rotating neutron stars without light cylinders},
author = {Maxim Lyutikov and Praveen Sharma},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2112.03313},
year = {2022}
}