Reflection From the Neutron Star Surface Under Conditions of Plasmon-Polariton Resonance and Additional Components in the Emission of a Pulsar in the Crab

Abstract

Additional relative to the main pulse and interpulse HF-components in the radiation of a Crab pulsar are observed in the same range where the interpulse shift occurs (Moffett, Hankins, 1996; Hankins, Jones and Eilek, 2015). The latter is explained by the specular reflection from a neutron star surface of returned positron radiation in an inclined magnetic field (Kontorovich, Trofimenko, 2017). Therefore the additional HF-components, which are substantially shifted in the rotation phase of the pulsar, can be naturally associated with (nonlinear) reflection – diffraction on the surface periodic structure. It is significant that such a structure can arise as a result of stimulated scattering on surface waves, and this scattering can occur under conditions of plasmon-polariton resonance associated with the diffraction spectrum sliding along the surface, which significantly reduces the stimulated scattering threshold. The large width of the components is explained by the continuous radiation spectrum of returned positrons incident on the surface. Although this mechanism found itself in the Crab pulsar due to a unique combination of parameters at centimeter wavelengths, it is completely common to pulsars. Another possibility – diffraction by a periodic structure due to the action of constant fields (electric or magnetic) − requires some separate consideration. The content of the report corresponds to publications (Kontorovich et al., 2018).