2014/12/04 by Daniele Viganò, D. F. Torres, Diego F. Torres +2 · 2 citations
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysics #Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena #Computational physics #Consistency (knowledge bases) #Curvature #Dispersion (optics) #Field (mathematics) #Geometry #High-pressure geophysics and materials #Optics #Photon #Physics #Pulsar #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #RADIUS #Range (aeronautics) #Statistical physics #astro-ph.HE
paper · pdf · doi:10.1093/mnras/stu2564
19 pages, 5 figures, 3 tables. Accepted for pubblication in MNRAS main journal. References updated
arxiv created 2014/12/04 · arxiv updated 2014/12/05 · openalex publication_date 2015/01/10 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
The popular outer gap model of magnetospheric emission from pulsars has been widely applied to explain the properties observed in γ-rays. However, its quantitative predictions rely on a number of approximations and assumptions that are usually overlooked. Here we examine them, reviewing the main ingredients entering the model, evaluating their range of uncertainties. Usually, in the quantitative applications of the model, key parameters like the radius of curvature and the energies of the interacting photons are taken to be a fixed, single value. Instead, here we explore their realistic ranges, and the impact of these on the consistency of the model itself. We conclude that the popular evaluation of the transfield size of the gap as a function of period and period derivative, is unreliable and affected by a huge dispersion. Last, the exploration of the possible values for the radius of curvature, the local magnetic field and other quantities deserve more attention for quantitative applications of the outer gap model, like the calculation of γ-ray spectra, which is the subject of an accompanying paper.