30 research outputs found
Born-Infeld magnetars: larger than classical toroidal magnetic fields and implications for gravitational-wave astronomy
Magnetars are neutron stars presenting bursts and outbursts of X- and
soft-gamma rays that can be understood with the presence of very large magnetic
fields. Thus, nonlinear electrodynamics should be taken into account for a more
accurate description of such compact systems. We study that in the context of
ideal magnetohydrodynamics and make a realization of our analysis to the case
of the well-known Born-Infeld (BI) electromagnetism in order to come up with
some of its astrophysical consequences. We focus here on toroidal magnetic
fields as motivated by already known magnetars with low dipolar magnetic fields
and their expected relevance in highly magnetized stars. We show that BI
electrodynamics leads to larger toroidal magnetic fields when compared to
Maxwell's electrodynamics. Hence, one should expect higher production of
gravitational waves (GWs) and even more energetic giant flares from nonlinear
stars. Given current constraints on BI's scale field, giant flare energetics
and magnetic fields in magnetars, we also find that the maximum magnitude of
magnetar ellipticities should be . Besides, BI electrodynamics
may lead to a maximum increase of order of the GW energy radiated
from a magnetar when compared to Maxwell's, while much larger percentages may
arise for other physically motivated scenarios. Thus, nonlinear theories of the
electromagnetism might also be probed in the near future with the improvement
of GW detectors.Comment: 8 pages, no figures, accepted for publication in The European
Physical Journal C (EPJC
Gravitational waves from pulsars with measured braking index
We study the putative emission of gravitational waves (GWs) in particular for
pulsars with measured braking index. We show that the appropriate combination
of both GW emission and magnetic dipole brakes can naturally explain the
measured braking index, when the surface magnetic field and the angle between
the magnetic dipole and rotation axes are time dependent. Then we discuss the
detectability of these very pulsars by aLIGO and the Einstein Telescope. We
call attention to the realistic possibility that aLIGO can detect the GWs
generated by at least some of these pulsars, such as Vela, for example.Comment: 6 pages and 4 figure
Fermionic matter under the effects of high magnetic fields and its consequences in white dwarfs
We investigate a recently proposed effect of strong magnetic fields in Fermionicmatter that is important to the structure of magnetic white dwarfs. This work is highly relevant in view of the recent observations of magnetized white dwarfs (B ~ 108-9 G), and possible candidates for white dwarfs pulsars as an alternative descriptions for SGRs and AXPs. Here, we consider the matter inside white dwarfs composed by ions surrounded by an electron degenerate Fermi gas subject to a strong magnetic field. We investigate the effect of the Landau levels due to the huge magnetic field on the equation of state (EoS). We see that the behaviour of the equation of state as a function of the mass and energy density is much stiffer when only one Landau level is occupied. We also investigate the regime of lower magnetic fields where many Landau levels are occupied
On the nature of some SGRs and AXPs as rotation-powered neutron stars
We investigate the possibility that some SGRs/AXPs could be canonical
rotation-powered pulsars using realistic NS structure parameters instead of
fiducial values. We show that realistic NS parameters lowers the estimated
value of the magnetic field and radiation efficiency, ,
with respect to estimates based on fiducial NS parameters. We show that nine
SGRs/AXPs can be described as canonical pulsars driven by the NS rotational
energy, for computed in the soft (2--10~keV) X-ray band. We compute the
range of NS masses for which . We discuss the observed
hard X-ray emission in three sources of the group of nine potentially
rotation-powered NSs. This additional hard X-ray component dominates over the
soft one leading to in two of them. We show that 9
SGRs/AXPs can be rotation-powered NSs if we analyze their X-ray luminosity in
the soft 2--10~keV band. Interestingly, four of them show radio emission and
six have been associated with supernova remnants (including Swift J1834.9-0846
the first SGR observed with a surrounding wind nebula). These observations give
additional support to our results of a natural explanation of these sources in
terms of ordinary pulsars. Including the hard X-ray emission observed in three
sources of the group of potential rotation-powered NSs, this number of sources
with becomes seven. It remains open to verification
1) the accuracy of the estimated distances and 2) the possible contribution of
the associated supernova remnants to the hard X-ray emission.Comment: 11 pages, 14 figures, to appear in A&
Mass limits of the extremely fast-spinning white dwarf CTCV J2056-3014
CTCV J2056--3014 is a nearby cataclysmic variable with an orbital period of
approximately hours at a distance of about light-years from the
Earth. Its recently reported X-ray properties suggest that J2056-3014 is an
unusual accretion-powered intermediate polar that harbors a fast-spinning white
dwarf (WD) with a spin period of s. The low X-ray luminosity and the
relatively modest accretion rate per unit area suggest that the shock is not
occurring near the WD surface. It has been argued that, under these conditions,
the maximum temperature of the shock cannot be directly used to determine the
mass of the WD (which, under the abovementioned assumptions, would be around
). Here, we explore the stability of this rapidly rotating WD
using a modern equation of state (EoS) that accounts for electron--ion,
electron--electron, and ion--ion interactions. For this EoS, we determine the
mass density thresholds for the onset of pycnonuclear fusion reactions and
study the impact of microscopic stability and rapid rotation on the structure
and stability of WDs, considering them with helium, carbon, oxygen, and neon.
From this analysis, we obtain a minimum mass for CTCV J2056--3014 of
and a maximum mass of around . If the mass of CTCV
J2056--3014 is close to the lower mass limit, its equatorial radius would be on
the order of ~km due to rapid rotation. Such a radius is significantly
larger than that of a nonrotating WD of average mass (), which
is on the order of ~km. The effects on the minimum mass of
J2056-3014 due to changes in the temperature and composition of the stellar
matter were found to be negligibly small.Comment: 5 pages, 3 Figures, 2 Tables. Accepted for publication in A&