1992/12/30 by Myron Bander, Bander, Myron, H. R. Rubinstein +1
Physics and Astronomy · #FOS: Physical sciences #High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph) #hep-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.hep-ph/9212314
pages (set in Revtex II)
arxiv created 1992/12/30 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30
The GRANAT group (R. Sunyaev \it et al.\/, Central Bureau of Astronomical Telegrams, International Astronomical Union, Circular No.~5481) recently reported the observation of a (545 ± 11) keV line in the spectrum of the Crab Nebula. It is tempting to associate this with the positron-electron annihilation line at 511 keV. If this line originates from some transition at the surface of the neutron star in the Crab, we expect a red shift of around 10% rather then the observed blue shift of ∼ 35 keV; in fact, this gravitational red shift implies that the natural frequency of the observed line is also 10% higher, or around 600 keV. In this article we shall present a mechanism for generating such a split from 511 keV. For this mechanism to be successful we require: (a) surface magnetic fields, in the annihilation region, to be (3-8)× 1012~G and to point in our direction, (b) surface densities of (105-106) g/cc. Both of these assumptions are consistent with pulsar models.