Magnetic field evolution of accreting neutron stars – IV. Effect of the curvature of space–time

Abstract

The evolution of the magnetic field in an accreting neutron star is investigated using a fully general relativistic treatment and assuming that initially the currents supporting the field are completely confined to the crust. We find that the field decay slows down owing to the inclusion of the curvature of space–time but the final results do not differ significantly from those obtained assuming a flat space–time. We also find that such modifications are small compared with the uncertainties introduced by a lack of precise knowledge of the neutron star microphysics.

Joule heating in high magnetic field pulsars

“…Even more or less standard for radiopulsars magnetic fields ∼ 10 12 − 10 13 G can maintain the surface temperature as high as ∼ 10 5 K for ∼ 10 − 100 Myr which is substantially higher than predicted by various cooling models. A general relativistic treatment of Joule heating in neutron stars undertaken by Page et al (2000) led to results very similar to those of Miralles et al (1998) since, as it was argued by Konar (2002), general relativistic corrections do not significantly influence the magnetic field decay in neutron stars.…”