2004/12/31 by B. Link, Fiorella Burgio · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #astro-ph #hep-ex
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.94.181101
published as Phys.Rev.Lett. 94 (2005) 181101 · 4 pages. Editorial changes and typos corrected
arxiv created 2005/05/19 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01
Neutron stars are efficient accelerators for bringing charges up to relativistic energies. We show that if positive ions are accelerated to ~1 PeV near the surface of a young neutron star (tage < about 105 yr), protons interacting with the star's radiation field will produce beamed mu neutrinos with energies of ~50 TeV that could produce the brightest neutrino sources at these energies yet proposed. These neutrinos would be coincident with the radio beam, so that if the star is detected as a radio pulsar, the neutrino beam will sweep the Earth; the star would be a ``neutrino pulsar''. Looking for muon neutrino emission from young neutron stars will provide a valuable probe of the energetics of the neutron star magnetosphere.