Very high energy emission of Crab-like pulsars driven by the Cherenkov drift radiation

TL;DR

This paper explores how Cherenkov drift waves induce high-energy emissions in Crab-like pulsars by maintaining electron pitch angles, leading to correlated UV, X-ray, and gamma-ray emissions through synchrotron processes.

Contribution

It demonstrates that Cherenkov drift instability efficiently sustains electron pitch angles, enabling high-energy synchrotron emission in Crab-like pulsars, a novel mechanism for VHE emission.

Findings

Cherenkov drift modes cause quasi-linear diffusion maintaining electron pitch angles.

High growth rate of Cherenkov drift instability indicates efficient VHE emission process.

Cherenkov drift emission correlates UV to X-ray with GeV gamma-ray synchrotron emission.

Abstract

In this paper we study the generation of very high energy (VHE) emission in Crab-like pulsars driven by means of the feedback of Cherenkov drift waves on distribution of magnetospheric electrons. We have found that the unstable Cherenkov drift modes lead to the quasi-linear diffusion (QLD), keeping the pitch angles from vanishing, which in turn, maintains the synchrotron mechanism. Considering the Crab-like pulsars it has been shown that the growth rate of the Cherenkov drift instability (ChDI) is quite high, indicating high efficiency of the process. Analyzing the mechanism for the typical parameters we have found that the Cherenkov drift emission from the extreme UV to hard $X$-rays is strongly correlated with the VHE synchrotron emission in the GeV band.