Speaker
Description
A sub-population of energetic rotation-powered pulsars show high fluxes of pulsed non-thermal hard X-ray emission. While this ‘MeV pulsar’ population includes some radio-loud pulsars like the Crab and PSR B1509-58, a significant number have no detected radio or GeV emission, a mystery since gamma-ray emission is a common characteristic of pulsars with high spin-down power. The All-Sky Medium-Energy Gamma-Ray Observatory (AMEGO), as well as e-Astrogam, plan to detect emission and polarization in the MeV band and may shed light on the MeV pulsars. We present a model for the spectrum and polarization of MeV pulsars where the X-ray emission comes from electron-positron pairs radiating in the outer magnetosphere and current sheet. This model predicts that the peak of the SED increases with surface magnetic field strength if the pairs are produced in polar cap cascades. For small inclination angles, viewing at large angles to the rotation axis can miss both the radio pulse and the GeV pulse from particles accelerating near the current sheet. Characterizing the emission and geometry of MeV pulsars can thus provide clues to the source of pairs and acceleration in the magnetosphere.
