| MODELING SPECTRAL FEATURES FROM ISOLATED NEUTRON STARS (2008) | |||||||||||||
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| Abstract We study several effects that influence the strength of the proton cyclotron and atomic features in the thermal spectra of magnetic neutron stars. Magnetic field variations over the neutron star surface leads to broadening of features. Vacuum polarization can strongly suppress spectral lines when B> ∼ 10 14 G. The surface spectrum is unaffected by vacuum polarization when B < ∼ 7 × 10 13 G; thus the proton cyclotron absorption line (and atomic lines) can have a large equivalent width, possibly explaining the features seen in some isolated neutron stars. Keywords: stars:atmospheres – stars:magnetic fields – stars:neutron – X-rays:stars 1. Observations Considerable observational resources have been devoted to the study of thermal emission from isolated neutron stars (NSs) and, in particular, to the search for spectral features in the radiation. Thermal radiation from the surface of isolated NSs can provide invaluable information on the physical properties and evolution of NSs (Zavlin 2005). For many NSs, the spectra are found to be featureless and often well fit by a blackbody (see Pavlov et al. 2002 for a review). However, absorption features have been found in the thermal emission of several isolated NSs. For example, the spectrum of the young NS | |||||||||||||
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