Related papers: Pair production in the millisecond pulsar J0030+04…
The possibility to observe vacuum electron-positron pair creation due to a powerful optical laser pulse is discussed. We employ a quantum kinetic formulation of the problem with a source term describing the vacuum pair production in a…
When a rotating neutron star loses angular momentum, the progressive reduction of the centrifugal force makes it contract. This perturbs each fluid element, raising the local pressure and originating deviations from beta equilibrium,…
We present the first X-ray observation of the energetic millisecond pulsar binary PSR J1431-4715, performed with XMM-Newton and complemented with fast optical multi-band photometry acquired with the ULTRACAM instrument at ESO-NTT. It is…
We study self-consistency for the pulsar polar cap model. In general, there will remain an unscreened electric field at the pair production front (PPF). We have derived the condition of electric field screening by pairs in the presence of…
In a strong magnetic field, B > 4x10^{12} G, gamma-rays emitted nearly along curved field lines adiabatically convert into bound electron-positron pairs (positronium atoms) rather that decaying into free pairs. This process may modify the…
Coherent radio emission from pulsars originates from excited plasma waves in an ultra-relativistic and strongly magnetized electron-positron pair plasma streaming along the open magnetic field lines of the pulsar. Traditional coherent radio…
In many-cycle plane waves at intermediate intensities, the nonlinear trident process can be well-approximated by the two sequential steps of nonlinear Compton scattering of a polarised real photon followed by its transformation into an…
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.…
We study electron-positron pair production by the combination of a strong, constant electric field and a thermal background. We show that this process is similar to dynamically assisted Schwinger pair production, where the strong field is…
It was recently proposed that the electric field oscillation as a result of self-consistent $e^{\pm}$ pair production may be the source of coherent radio emission from pulsars. Direct Particle-in-Cell (PIC) simulations of this process have…
This paper examines the possibility that hadronic processes produce the >100 MeV photons in the prompt phase of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) observed by the Fermi-LAT. We calculate analytically the radiation from protons and from secondary…
The electron-positron pair production accompanying interaction of a circularly polarized laser pulse with a foil is studied for laser intensities higher than $10^{24}$W cm$^{-2}$. The laser energy penetrates into the foil due to the effect…
A number of possible pulsar radio emission mechanisms are based on streaming instabilities in relativistically hot electron-positron pair plasmas. At saturation the unstable waves can form, in principle, stable solitary waves which could…
Little attention has so far been paid to the division of the observed population between pulsars of the two spin directions that are possible. Almost all pulsars with positive corotational charge density at the polar caps are expected to…
The bound-free channel of electron-positron pair production by a highly charged bare ion in the presence of a strong constant crossed electromagnetic field is studied. To calculate the pair production rate, two different methods are applied…
Recent advances in numerical algorithms and computational power have enabled first-principles simulations of pulsar magnetospheres using Particle-in-Cell (PIC) techniques. These ab-initio simulations seem to indicate that pair creation…
Ultra strong electromagnetic fields can lead to spontaneous creation of single or multiple electron-positron pairs. A quantum field theoretical treatment of the pair creation process combined with numerical methods provides a description of…
I present an analysis of the deepest X-ray exposure of a radio millisecond pulsar (MSP) to date, an X-ray Multi Mirror-Newton European Photon Imaging Camera spectroscopic and timing observation of the nearest known MSP, PSR J0437--4715. The…
The mechanism of laser-driven relativistic pair-jet production qualitatively changes as laser intensity exceeds $I\gtrsim5\times10^{22}$ W/cm$^{2}$ because of the appearance of laser-induced strong-field QED processes. Here, we show that by…
The process of bound-free pair production of electrons and positrons in combined laser and Coulomb fields is investigated. It is assumed that an ion collides at relativistic speed with an intense x-ray laser beam of linear polarization. The…