2006/08/30 by N. Rea, Silvia Zane, S. Zane +3 · 4 citations
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomy #Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations #Astrophysics #Black-body radiation #Computational physics #Cyclotron #Cyclotron resonance #High-pressure geophysics and materials #Magnetar #Magnetosphere #Neutron star #Nuclear physics #Optics #Physics #Plasma #Pulsar #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #Radiation #Scattering #Spectral line #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1007/s10509-007-9306-1
published as Astrophys.SpaceSci.308:61-65,2007 · 5 pages, 5 color figures; Astrophysics & Space Science, in press ("Isolated Neutron Stars"; London, UK)
arxiv created 2006/08/30 · openalex publication_date 2007/03/14 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
The X-ray spectra of the magnetar candidates are customarily fitted with an empirical, two component model: an absorbed blackbody and a power-law. However, the physical interpretation of these two spectral components is rarely discussed. It has been recently proposed that the presence of a hot plasma in the magnetosphere of highly magnetized neutron stars might distort, through efficient resonant cyclotron scattering, the thermal emission from the neutron star surface, resulting in production of non-thermal spectra. Here we discuss the Resonant Cyclotron Scattering (RCS) model, and present its XSPEC implementation, as well as preliminary results of its application to Anomalous X-ray Pulsars and Soft Gamma-ray Repeaters.