Neutron stars: history of the magnetic field decay

TL;DR

This paper reconstructs the decay history of magnetic fields in galactic neutron stars using pulsar data, revealing a universal decay law that follows a power law with an index of -1.17, assuming constant birth rates and similar decay laws across all NSs.

Contribution

It introduces a method to derive a universal magnetic field decay function for neutron stars based on pulsar data and specific assumptions about their birth rates and decay laws.

Findings

Magnetic field decay follows a power law with index -1.17.

The decay law is consistent across different neutron stars.

The method reconstructs magnetic field history assuming constant pulsar birth rates.

Abstract

Using the data of the ATNF pulsar catalog we study the relation connected the real age t of young neutron stars (NS) and their spin-down age \tau. We suppose that this relation is independent from both initial period of the NS and its initial surface magnetic field, and that the laws of the surface magnetic field decay are similar for all NSs in the Milky Way. We further assume that the birth-rate of pulsars was constant during at least last 200 million years. With these assumptions we were able to restore the history of the magnetic field decay for the galactic NSs. We reconstruct the universal function f(t)=B(t)/B0, where B0 is the initial magnetic field and B(t) is the magnetic field of NS at the age t. The function f(t) can be fitted by a power law with power index \alpha = -1.17.