Open AccessCyclotron absorption of radio emission within pulsar magnetospheres
Author(s) -
Luo Qinghuan,
Melrose D.B.
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
monthly notices of the royal astronomical society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.058
H-Index - 383
eISSN - 1365-2966
pISSN - 0035-8711
DOI - 10.1046/j.1365-8711.2001.04402.x
Subject(s) - pulsar , physics , cyclotron , astrophysics , cyclotron resonance , absorption (acoustics) , plasma , cyclotron radiation , astronomy , radio wave , nuclear physics , optics , quantum mechanics
Absorption of radio emission through normal cyclotron resonance within pulsar magnetospheres is considered. The optical depth for cyclotron damping is calculated using a plasma distribution with an intrinsically relativistic spread. We argue that such a broad distribution is plausible for pulsar plasmas and that it implies that a class of pulsars that should have cyclotron damping extends to include young pulsars with shorter periods and stronger magnetic fields. There is no obvious observational evidence for disruption of radio pulses, which implies that the optical depth cannot be too large. We propose that cyclotron resonance may cause marginal absorption of radio emission. It is shown that such marginal absorption produces potentially observable asymmetric features for double‐peak pulse profiles with wide separation, with one peak tending to be suppressed.