Unifying the observational diversity of isolated neutron stars via magneto-thermal evolution models

2013/06/10 by Daniele Viganò, Nanda Rea, N. Rea +7 · 14 citations
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomy #Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations #Astrophysics #Galaxy #High-pressure geophysics and materials #Luminosity #Magnetar #Magnetic field #Neutron star #Physics #Pulsar #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #Stars #astro-ph.HE #astro-ph.SR

paper · pdf · doi:10.1093/mnras/stt1008

21 pages, 11 figures, MNRAS accepted

arxiv created 2013/06/10 · openalex publication_date 2013/07/03 · arxiv updated 2015/06/16 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/06

Abstract

Observations of magnetars and some of the high magnetic field pulsars have shown that their thermal luminosity is systematically higher than that of classical radio-pulsars, thus confirming the idea that magnetic fields are involved in their X-ray emission. Here we present the results of 2D simulations of the fully coupled evolution of temperature and magnetic field in neutron stars, including the state-of-the-art kinetic coefficients and, for the first time, the important effect of the Hall term. After gathering and thoroughly re-analysing in a consistent way all the best available data on isolated, thermally emitting neutron stars, we compare our theoretical models to a data sample of 40 sources. We find that our evolutionary models can explain the phenomenological diversity of magnetars, high-B radio-pulsars, and isolated nearby neutron stars by only varying their initial magnetic field, mass and envelope composition. Nearly all sources appear to follow the expectations of the standard theoretical models. Finally, we discuss the expected outburst rates and the evolutionary links between different classes. Our results constitute a major step towards the grand unification of the isolated neutron star zoo.

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Cited by

• General relativistic models for rotating magnetized neutron stars in conformally flat space–time
• The SUrvey for Pulsars and Extragalactic Radio Bursts – IV. Discovery and polarimetry of a 12.1-s radio pulsar
• Three-dimensional Modeling of the Magnetothermal Evolution of Neutron Stars: Method and Test Cases
• Magnetars: A Short Review and Some Sparse Considerations
• A note on the puzzling spindown behavior of the Galactic center magnetar SGR J1745–2900
• X-ray spectral analysis of the neutron star in SNR 1E 0102.2−7219
• Probing the surface magnetic field structure in RX J1856.5−3754
• Powering central compact objects with a tangled crustal magnetic field
• Long-term evolution of the force-free twisted magnetosphere of a magnetar
• X-Ray Observations of Magnetar SGR 0501+4516 from Outburst to Quiescence
• Radio pulsar population synthesis with consistent flux measurements using simulation-based inference
• Long-term evolution, X-ray outburst and optical/infrared emission of SGR 0501+4516
• Magnetic Axis Drift and Magnetic Spot Formation in Neutron Stars with Toroidal Fields
• The Dipole Magnetic Field and Spin-down Evolutions of the High Braking Index Pulsar PSR J1640–4631