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Radiation Gas Dynamics of Polar Cap Accretion onto Magnetized Neutron Stars

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 August 2017

Richard I. Klein
Affiliation:
University of California, Berkeley Department of Astronomy 601 Campbell Hall, Berkeley, California 94720, USA
Jonathan Arons
Affiliation:
Institute for Geophysics and Planetary Physics Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory P.O. Box 808, Livermore, California 94550, USA

Abstract

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We present results of the first self-consistent, time-dependent, 2-D calculations of the accretion of plasma onto polar caps of high luminosity (L*>1036erg-s−1) magnetized neutron stars. We follow the temporal and spatial evolution of three fluids, electrons, ions and photons in a superstrong (B=3×1012 Gauss) dipole magnetic field where radiation pressure dominates plasma pressure by solving coupled 2-D equations of radiation hydrodynamics. We have included several physical processes in the radiation-plasma coupling in superstrong magnetic fields (Klein, et al., 1984, Santa Cruz Workshop on High Energy Transients, and Arons, this conference). We solve the resulting system of coupled 2-D PDEs on a Cray XMP-48 by applying implicit finite-difference techniques with iterative operator splitting methods. We present results for two models of 5×1037 erg-s and 1.5×1038 erg-s−1 super-Eddington luminosity on one polar cap, each having initial mass flux independent of co-latitude of a field lines footprint. We find (a) Radiation develops a broad transverse fan beam that emerges from an annulus 0.2–0.5km above the polar cap. (b) The beam profile is determined by advective trapping of radiation in optically thick (τ11 ≈103) flow. Here the time for diffusion of radiation up through the accretion column is ≫ the time for downward advection. (c) There is a three fluid nonequilibrium with Ti≫Tγ≥Te. (d) Maximum photon temperature of ≈ 10–20 keV in the fan beam is in the observed range. (e) Cyclotron emission ≫ bremsstrahlung as a source of photons. (f) At early times (≪lms) radiation pressure strongly decelerates flow to 10−3 of freefall in central regions of accretion column resulting in a density mound, but plasma freefalls down the sides of the column. (g) Analytical models have reasonable agreement with numerical calculations; velocity and energy density roughly Gaussian transversally and exponential vertically, until the onset of “photon bubbles” after several dynamical times (∼lms). (h) Multiple “photon bubbles” rising subsonically in the accretion column form in the high luminosity model. We believe the photon bubbles to be a possible consequence of overstable convection in super-Eddington flows. These photon bubbles could be observable as 10–100μs fluctuations in the emergent flux and, thus, be an important diagnostic for inhomogeneous structure of the column.

Type
II. Accretion Powered Pulsars
Copyright
Copyright © Reidel 1987