1998/04/29 by A. von Hoensbroech, Alexis von Hoensbroech, von Hoensbroech, Alexis +5 · 1 citation
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysics (astro-ph) #FOS: Physical sciences #High-pressure geophysics and materials #Ionosphere and magnetosphere dynamics #Magnetic confinement fusion research #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.astro-ph/9804318
Accepted for publication by Astronomy & Astrophysics. 12 pages including 14 postscript figures
arxiv created 1998/04/29 · openalex publication_date 1998/04/29 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We present a comprehensive investigation of the radio polarization properties within the theory of natural electromagnetic wave modes in pulsar magnetospheres. Taking into account the curvature of the field lines, aberration effects and magnetic sweep-back we use the relativistic dielectric tensor in the low-density cold plasma approximation and derive the following polarization characteristics, which are in full agreement with the observational findings. Specifically, we demonstrate that 1. The degree of linear polarization decreases with increasing frequency. 2. The degree of circular polarization increases with increasing frequency. 3. At high frequencies (> a few GHz) the degree of linear polarization is correlated to the spin down luminosity Edot. 4. At high frequencies long-period pulsars exhibit weaker linear polarization than their short-period counterparts. 5. The difference between the refractive indices of the two natural wave modes decreases with increasing frequency which possibly results into a depolarization via superposition.