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X-Ray Polarimetry Workshop SLAC, Stanford, California 9-11 February 2004 |
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Polarization of Pulsar Radiation in the Two-Pole Caustic Model and the Outer Gap Model
Jaroslaw
Dyks
Goddard Space Flight Center
jinx@milkyway.gsfc.nasa.gov
J. Dyks, A. K. Harding, B. Rudak
We present linear polarization characteristics of pulsar radiation as predicted by two models of high-energy radiation from extended regions in the outer magnetosphere: the recently proposed two-pole caustic (TPC) model (Dyks & Rudak 2003), and the outer gap (OG) model. We improve the calculations by Romani & Yadigaroglu (1995) by taking into account the influence of special relativistic effects on the position angle curve. The TPC model predicts fast swings of the position angle and strong depolarization at both peaks, in qualitative agreement with the new optical data for the Crab pulsar. The fast swings as well as the decrease in the polarization degree arise from the caustic pile up of photons emitted from a wide range of altitudes. In the case of the outer gap model we find, unlike Romani & Yadigaroglu (1995), that the model is not able to reproduce the optical Crab data even qualitatively.
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