Related papers: Photon Splitting and Pair Conversion in Strong Mag…
Over the last four decades, persistent and flaring emission of magnetars observed by various telescopes has provided us with a suite of light curves and spectra in soft and hard X-rays, with no emission yet detected above around 1 MeV.…
Photon splitting is a QED process that can potentially suppress pair production in the inner magnetosphere of a pulsar with a super-strong magnetic field, and hence, may quench radio emission from these objects. While it is unknown how many…
Magnetars are neutron stars characterized by strong surface magnetic fields generally exceeding the quantum critical value of 44.1 TeraGauss. High-energy photons propagating in their magnetospheres can be attenuated by QED processes like…
We evaluate several basic electrodynamic processes as modified by the presence of a very strong magnetic field, exceeding $B_{\rm Q} \equiv m^2/e = 4.4\times 10^{13}$ G. These results are needed to build models of dissipative phenomena…
The process of photon splitting, becomes allowed in the presence of strong magnetic field. We calculate the influence of magnetized plasma on the photon splitting absorption coefficient. We calculate the refraction coefficients and…
The recent association of soft gamma repeaters (SGRs) with counterparts in other wavebands has sparked much interest in these sources. One of the recent models for these objects is that they originate in the environs of neutron stars with…
Extremely strong magnetic fields change the vacuum index of refraction. Although this polarization dependent effect is small for typical neutron stars, it is large enough to decouple the polarization states of photons traveling within the…
Magnetic photon splitting, a QED process that becomes important only in magnetic fields approaching the quantum critical value, B_cr = 4.41 X 10^13 Gauss, is investigated as a mechanism for attenuation of gamma-rays emitted near the surface…
The process of photon splitting $\gamma \to \gamma \gamma$ in a strong magnetic field is investigated both below and above the pair creation threshold. Contrary to the statement by Baier et al., the ``allowed'' channel $\alw$ is shown not…
We reassess the importance of photon splitting to spectral formation in cosmic X-ray and $\gamma$-ray sources with magnetic fields of several $10^{12}$ gauss. Our analysis is based on the recent numerically accurate evaluation of the full…
Gamma-rays from pulsars can be efficiently attenuated in their magnetospheres via the mechanism of single-photon pair production and also the exotic QED process of photon splitting, which become prolific in fields approaching the quantum…
We present numerical simulations of electron-positron pair cascades in the magnetospheres of magnetic neutron stars for a wide range of surface fields (B_p = 10^{12}--10^{15} G), rotation periods (0.1--10 s), and field geometries. This has…
In the presence of strong magnetic fields, the vacuum becomes a birefringent medium. We show that this QED effect decouples the polarization modes of photons leaving the NS surface. Both the total intensity and the intensity in each of the…
Strong magnetic fields in magnetospheres of neutron stars (especially magnetars) and other astrophysical objects may release their energy in violent, intense episodes of magnetic reconnection. While reconnection has been studied…
We consider the electron-positron plasma generation processes in the magnetospheres of magnetars - neutron stars with strong surface magnetic fields, B = 10^(14) - 10^(15) G. We show that the photon splitting in a magnetic field, which is…
By taking the spin and polarization of the electrons, positrons and photons into account in the strong-field QED processes of nonlinear Compton emission and pair production, we find that the growth rate of QED cascades in ultra-intense…
X-ray photons emitted from the surface or atmosphere of a magnetized neutron star is highly polarized. However, the observed polarization may be modified due to photon propagation through the star's magnetosphere. For photon frequencies…
A strong electromagnetic field polarizes the vacuum and in the presence of an electric field creates pairs of a charged particle and its anti-particle. Magnetars, highly magnetized neutron stars with magnetic field comparable to or greater…
Photon-photon scattering, due to photons interacting with virtual electron-positron pairs, is an intriguing deviation from classical electromagnetism predicted by quantum electrodynamics (QED). Apart from being of fundamental interest in…
We consider the details of the QED processes that create electron-positron pairs in magnetic fields approaching and exceeding 10^{14} G. The formation of free and bound pairs is addressed, and the importance of positronium dissociation by…