2011/04/28 by Kouichi Hirotani · 1 citation
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysics #Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena #Computational physics #Curvature #Electric field #Electron #Gamma ray #Geometry #Magnetic field #Magnetosphere #Mechanics #Nuclear physics #Optics #Particle Accelerators and Free-Electron Lasers #Physics #Pulsar #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #Trailing edge #astro-ph.HE
paper · pdf · doi:10.1088/2041-8205/733/2/l49
5 pages, 5 figures, ApJ Letters in press
arxiv created 2011/04/28 · openalex publication_date 2011/05/12 · arxiv updated 2015/05/28 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
The spectral characteristics of the pulsed gamma-ray emission from outer-magnetospheric particle accelerators are investigated. Either positrons or electrons are accelerated outward by the magnetic-field-aligned electric field to emit gamma rays via the curvature process. Since the particles move along relatively straight paths in the trailing side of a rotating magnetosphere, they attain higher Lorentz factors to emit more energetic gamma rays than those in the leading side. It is first demonstrated that the cutoff energy of the curvature radiation evolves with the rotation phase owing to the variation of the curvature radii of the particle paths and maximizes at a slightly later phase of the trailing peak in the gamma-ray light curve.