Magnetic field evolution of accreting neutron stars

TL;DR

This paper models how accretion-induced currents in neutron star crusts generate intense magnetic fields that decay over millions of years, explaining observed magnetic field evolution.

Contribution

It presents a detailed physical model of magnetic field generation and decay in accreting neutron stars, highlighting the role of crust conductivity and vortex dynamics.

Findings

Magnetic field can reach up to 10^{17} Gauss in the core.

Magnetic field decreases exponentially with a characteristic time of about 1000 years.

Field diminishes to 10^{8}-10^{9} Gauss over 1-10 million years.

Abstract

The flow of a matter, accreting onto a magnetized neutron star, is accompanied by an electric current. The closing of the electric current occurs in the crust of a neutron stars in the polar region across the magnetic field. But the conductivity of the crust along the magnetic field greatly exceeds the conductivity across the field, so the current penetrates deep into the crust down up to the super conducting core. The magnetic field, generated by the accretion current, increases greatly with the depth of penetration due to the Hall conductivity of the crust is also much larger than the transverse conductivity. As a result, the current begins to flow mainly in the toroidal direction, creating a strong longitudinal magnetic field, far exceeding an initial dipole field. This field exists only in the narrow polar tube of $r$ width, narrowing with the depth, i.e. with increasing of the crust density $\rho$, $r\propto \rho^{-1/4}$. Accordingly, the magnetic field $B$ in the tube increases with the depth, $B\propto \rho^{1/2}$, and reaches the value of about $10^{17}$ Gauss in the core. It destroys super conducting vortices in the core of a star in the narrow region of the size of the order of ten centimeters. Because of generated density gradient of vortices they constantly flow into this dead zone and the number of vortices decreases, the magnetic field of a star decreases as well. The attenuation of the magnetic field is exponential, $B=B_0(1+t/\tau)^{-1}$. The characteristic time of decreasing of the magnetic field $\tau$ is equal to $\tau\simeq 10^3$ years. Thus, the magnetic field of accreted neutron stars decreases to values of $10^8 - 10^9$ Gauss during $10^7-10^6$ years.