{
  "id": "astro-ph/9704139",
  "version": "v1",
  "published": "1997-04-15T00:32:11.000Z",
  "updated": "1997-04-15T00:32:11.000Z",
  "title": "The Attenuation of Gamma-Ray Emission in Strongly-Magnetized Pulsars",
  "authors": [
    "Matthew G. Baring",
    "Alice K. Harding",
    "Peter L. Gonthier"
  ],
  "comment": "4 pages, including 2 eps figures, with ESA style files, to appear in Proc. of the 2nd Integral Workshop, held in St. Malo, France, Sep. 1996",
  "categories": [
    "astro-ph"
  ],
  "abstract": "Gamma-rays from pulsars can be efficiently attenuated in their magnetospheres via the mechanism of single-photon pair production and also the exotic QED process of photon splitting, which become prolific in fields approaching the quantum critical value of $B_{cr}=4.41\\times 10^{13}$ Gauss. Recently we have published results of our modelling of strongly-magnetized $\\gamma$-ray pulsars, which focused on the escape or attenuation of photons emitted near the pole at the neutron star surface in dipole fields, in a Schwarzschild metric. We found that pair production and splitting totally inhibit emission above around 10--30 MeV in PSR1509-58, whose surface field is inferred to be as high as $0.7B_{cr}$. Our model pulsar spectra are consistent with the EGRET upper limits for PSR1509-58 for a wide range of polar cap sizes. Here we review the principal predictions of our attenuation analysis, and identify how its powerful observational diagnostic capabilities relate to current and future gamma-ray experiments. Diagnostics include the energy of the gamma-ray turnover and the spectral polarization, which constrain the estimated polar cap size and field strength, and can determine the relative strength of splitting and pair creation.",
  "revisions": [
    {
      "version": "v1",
      "updated": "1997-04-15T00:32:11.000Z"
    }
  ],
  "analyses": {
    "keywords": [
      "gamma-ray emission",
      "strongly-magnetized pulsars",
      "attenuation",
      "polar cap size",
      "powerful observational diagnostic capabilities relate"
    ],
    "note": {
      "typesetting": "TeX",
      "pages": 4,
      "language": "en",
      "license": "arXiv",
      "status": "editable",
      "inspire": 461145
    }
  }
}