Why curvature radiation in neutron-star magnetospheres should be treated in the framework of quantum electrodynamics
Abstract
Curvature radiation is a key phenomenon in pulsar and magnetar magnetospheres. It is classically conceptually very close to synchrotron radiation, however we will show that in ultra-relativistic very-high-magnetic-field environments, the same approximations that lead to its use are also leading quickly to a potential quantized regime where the classical theory may fail. We explain in some details these caveats and give an outline of a quantum-electrodynamics treatment. We show that the internal consistency of the theory of curvature radiation is improved, and some interesting effects due to spin-flip transitions may occur.
- Publication:
-
SF2A-2016: Proceedings of the Annual meeting of the French Society of Astronomy and Astrophysics
- Pub Date:
- December 2016
- Bibcode:
- 2016sf2a.conf...45V
- Keywords:
-
- Neutron stars;
- pulsars;
- magnetars;
- synchrotron;
- curvature radiation;
- quantum electrodynamics