Astron. Astrophys. 332, 569-574 (1998)

Gravitation spin effect on the magnetic inclination evolution of pulsars

C.M. Zhang ^{1, 2}, K.S. Cheng ² and X.J. Wu <sup>2

1</sup> Department of Physics, Hebei University of Technology, Tianjin-300130, P.R. China
² Department of Physics, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong (h9592010@hkusub.hku.hk)

Received 20 May 1997 / Accepted 17 December 1997

Abstract

If pulsar magnetic fields are associated with the intrinsic magnetic moment of neutrons inside the stellar crust, the gravitational spin effect can induce the magnetic axis to align with the rotation axis. Our theoretical results show that the decay time scale is inversely proportional to the magnetic field strength, and that longer initial period pulsars can delay the alignment process. Therefore the inclination angle of strong magnetic field pulsars should be distributed randomly but the weak field pulsars should concentrate towards lower values of inclination angle. Various statistical analyses comparing theoretical predictions and observational data have been done and satisfactory agreement between them obtained.

Key words: relativity pulsars: general

Send offprint requests to: C.M. Zhang, Dept. of Phys., The University of Hong Kong

SIMBAD Objects

Contents

• 1. Introduction
• 2. The evolution of the magnetic inclination
• 3. Comparison with observations
  • 3.1. Time evolution of pulsar inclination angle
  • 3.2. Effect of magnetic field strength on the observational distribution of the inclination angle
• 4. Discussion and conclusions
• Acknowledgements
• References

© European Southern Observatory (ESO) 1998

Online publication: March 23, 1998
helpdesk@link.springer.de