Pulsar-driven Jets in Supernovae, Gamma-Ray Bursts, and the Universe

TL;DR

This paper proposes a pulsar-driven jet model, SLIP, explaining various astrophysical phenomena from supernovae to gamma-ray bursts and cosmic structures, unifying observations with a novel emission mechanism.

Contribution

It introduces the SLIP model based on polarization currents beyond the pulsar light cylinder, offering a unified explanation for diverse high-energy astrophysical phenomena.

Findings

Explains supernova bipolarity and jets with high collimation and velocity.

Accounts for gamma-ray burst afterglows as pulsed emissions from pulsars.

Links cosmic structures and anomalies to pulsar-driven jet mechanisms.

Abstract

The bipolarity of Supernova 1987A can be understood through its very early light curve observed from the CTIO 0.4-m telescope and IUE FES, and following speckle observations of the `Mystery Spot' by two groups. These indicate a highly directional beam/jet of light/particles, with initial collimation factors in excess of 10,000 and velocities in excess of 0.95 c, as an impulsive event of up to 1e-5 solar masses interacting with circumstellar material. These can be produced by a model proposed in 1972, by Bolotovskii and Ginzburg, which employs pulsar emission from polarization currents induced/(modulated faster than c) beyond the pulsar light cylinder by the periodic electromagnetic field (supraluminally induced polarization currents -- SLIP). SLIP accounts for the disruption of progenitors in supernova explosions and their anomalous dimming at cosmological distances, jets from Sco X-1 and SS 433, the lack/presence of intermittent pulsations from the high/low luminosity low mass X-ray binaries, long/short gamma-ray bursts and predicts that their afterglows are the pulsed optical/near infrared emission associated with these pulsars. SLIP may also account for the TeV e+/e- results from PAMELA and ATIC, the WMAP `Haze'/Fermi `Bubbles', and the r-process. SLIP jets from SNe of the first stars may allow galaxies to form without dark matter, and explain the peculiar, non-gravitational motions observed from pairs of distant galaxies by GALEX.