Peculiar spectral property of coherent radio emission from a hot magnetic star: the case of an extreme oblique rotator

TL;DR

This study observes the coherent radio emission from the hot magnetic star HD 142990 across a wide frequency range, revealing complex frequency-dependent properties and challenging traditional mode identification methods due to plasma refraction effects.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed broadband analysis of ECME from an extreme oblique rotator, highlighting the impact of plasma refraction on mode interpretation and emission properties.

Findings

ECME shows strong frequency dependence in pulse properties.

At sub-GHz frequencies, ECME appears in the extraordinary mode.

At GHz frequencies, ECME appears in the ordinary mode, contrary to expectations.

Abstract

We report ultra-wideband (0.4-4.0 GHz) observation of coherent radio emission via electron cyclotron maser emission (ECME) produced by the hot magnetic star HD 142990. With nearly perpendicular rotation and magnetic dipole axes, it represents an extreme case of oblique rotators. The large obliquity is predicted to cause complex distribution of stellar wind plasma in the magnetosphere (Townsend & Owocki 2005). It has been proposed that such a distribution will give rise to non-trivial frequency dependence of ECME (Das et al. 2020d). Indeed we discovered strong frequency dependence of different pulse-properties, such as appearance of secondary pulses, different cut-off frequencies for pulses observed at different rotational phases etc.. But the unique feature that we observed is that while at sub-GHz frequencies, the star appears to produce ECME in the extra-ordinary mode, at GHz frequencies, the mode indicated by the pulse-property is the ordinary mode. By considering the physical condition needed by such a scenario, we conclude that the required transition of the magneto-ionic mode with frequency is unlikely to occur, and the most promising scenario is refraction caused by the complex plasma distribution surrounding the star. This suggests that the conventional way to deduce the magneto-ionic mode based on ECME observed at a given frequency is not a reliable method for stars with large misalignment between their rotation and magnetic axes. We also find that ECME exhibits an upper cut-off at $\lesssim 3.3$ GHz, which is much smaller than the frequency corresponding to the maximum stellar magnetic field strength.