Polarization Evolution in A Strongly Magnetized Vacuum: QED Effect and Polarized X-ray Emission from Magnetized Neutron Stars

TL;DR

This paper investigates how vacuum birefringence and quasi-tangential effects influence X-ray polarization from magnetized neutron stars, revealing conditions under which polarization is significantly altered during photon propagation.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of the QT propagation effect on X-ray polarization, offering practical criteria and a prescription to incorporate this effect in neutron star models.

Findings

Vacuum birefringence maintains high linear polarization in most regions.

QT effects can reduce polarization by more than a factor of two.

QT effect significance depends on magnetic field, energy, and emission geometry.

Abstract

X-ray photons emitted from the surface or atmosphere of a magnetized neutron star is highly polarized. However, the observed polarization may be modified due to photon propagation through the star's magnetosphere. For photon frequencies much larger than the typical radio frequency, vacuum birefringence due to strong-field quantum electrodynamics dominates over the plasma effect. We study the evolution of photon polarization in the magnetized QED vacuum of a neutron star magnetosphere, paying particular attention to the propagation effect across the quasi-tangential (QT) point, where the photon momentum is nearly aligned with the magnetic field. In agreement with previous studies, we find that in most regions of the magnetosphere, the photon polarization modes are decoupled due to vacuum birefringence, and therefore a large net linear polarization can be expected when the radiation escapes the magnetosphere. However, we show that X-ray polarization may change significantly when the photon passes through the QT region. When averaging over a finite emission area, the net effect of QT propagation is to reduce the degree of linear polarization; the reduction factor depends on the photon energy, magnetic field strength, geometry, rotation phase and the emission area, and can be more than a factor of two. We derive the general conditions under which the QT propagation effect is important, and provide an easy-to-use prescription to account for the QT effect for most practical calculations of X-ray polarization signals from magnetic neutron stars. For a neutron star with a dipole magnetic field, the QT effect can be important for emission from the polar cap for certain magnetic field and energy ranges, and is negligible for emission from the entire stellar surface.