Program

Neutrino Pulsars

Bennett Link

Montana State University

Abstract:

Neutron stars are efficient accelerators for bringing charges up to relativistic energies. I show that if positive ions are accelerated to ~ 1 PeV near the surface of a young neutron star, protons interacting with the star's radiation field will produce beamed \mu neutrinos with energies of ~ 50 TeV resulting in certain neutron stars being the brightest neutrino sources at these energies yet proposed. The neutrinos would be roughly coincident with the radio beam, so that if the star is detected as a radio pulsar, the neutrino beam will sweep the Earth; the star would be a ``neutrino pulsar''. Looking for \nu_\mu emission from young neutron stars will provide a valuable probe of the energetics of the neutron star magnetosphere.


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