Magnetic Field-Decay-Induced Electron Captures: a Strong Heat Source in Magnetar Crusts

Autor:	Cooper, Randall L., Kaplan, David L.
Rok vydání:	2009
Předmět:	Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena Astrophysics - Solar and Stellar Astrophysics Nuclear Experiment Nuclear Theory
Druh dokumentu:	Working Paper
DOI:	10.1088/2041-8205/708/2/L80
Popis:	We propose a new heating mechanism in magnetar crusts. Magnetars' crustal magnetic fields are much stronger than their surface fields; therefore, magnetic pressure partially supports the crust against gravity. The crust loses magnetic pressure support as the field decays and must compensate by increasing the electron degeneracy pressure; the accompanying increase in the electron Fermi energy induces nonequilibrium, exothermic electron captures. The total heat released via field-decay electron captures is comparable to the total magnetic energy in the crust. Thus, field-decay electron captures are an important, if not the primary, mechanism powering magnetars' soft X-ray emission. Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, minor improvements, results and conclusions unchanged; accepted by ApJL
Databáze:	arXiv
Externí odkaz:	http://arxiv.org/abs/0910.2466 Zobrazit plný text záznamu View this record from Arxiv