Testing the fossil field hypothesis: could strongly magnetised OB stars produce all known magnetars?

TL;DR

This study investigates whether the fossil field hypothesis can explain the magnetic properties of neutron stars, concluding that a simple fossil origin cannot account for the observed magnetic field differences between pulsars and magnetars.

Contribution

The paper provides a comprehensive analysis of magnetic field distributions in massive stars and tests the fossil field hypothesis against neutron star populations using population synthesis.

Findings

Fossil field hypothesis cannot simultaneously explain pulsar and magnetar magnetic fields.

Magnetars likely do not originate solely from fossil magnetic fields of progenitor stars.

Magnetic field differences of 2.7 DEX are insufficient to produce observed neutron star magnetic populations.

Abstract

Stars of spectral types O and B produce neutron stars (NSs) after supernova explosions. Most of NSs are strongly magnetised including normal radio pulsars with $B \propto 10^{12}$ G and magnetars with $B\propto 10^{14}$ G. A fraction of 7-12 per cent of massive stars are also magnetised with $B\propto 10^3$ G and some are weakly magnetised with $B\propto 1$ G. It was suggested that magnetic fields of NSs could be the fossil remnants of magnetic fields of their progenitors. This work is dedicated to study this hypothesis. First, we gather all modern precise measurements of surface magnetic fields in O, B and A stars. Second, we estimate parameters for log-normal distribution of magnetic fields in B stars and found $\mu_B = 2.83\pm 0.1$ $\log_{10}$ (G), $\sigma_B=0.65\pm 0.09$ for strongly magnetised and $\mu_B = 0.14\pm 0.5$ $\log_{10}$ (G), $\sigma=0.7_{-0.27}^{+0.57}$ for weakly magnetised. Third, we assume that the magnetic field of pulsars and magnetars have $2.7$ DEX difference in magnetic fields and magnetars represent 10 per cent of all young NSs and run population synthesis. We found that it is impossible to simultaneously reproduce pulsars and magnetars populations if the difference in their magnetic fields is 2.7 DEX. Therefore, we conclude that the simple fossil origin of the magnetic field is not viable for NSs.