Thermal emission from isolated neutron stars and their surface magnetic field: Going quadrupolar? |
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| Institution: | 1. Mullard Space Science Laboratory, University College of London, Holmbury St. Mary, Dorking, Surrey RH5 6NT, UK;2. Department of Physics, University of Padua, via Marzolo 8, Padua, Italy;1. Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden Street MS-70, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA;2. Jansky Fellow, National Radio Astronomy Observatory, and Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden Street MS-70, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA |
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| Abstract: | In the last few years considerable observational resources have been devoted to study the thermal emission from isolated neutron stars. Detailed XMM and Chandra observations revealed a number of features in the X-ray pulse profile, like asymmetry, energy dependence, and possible evolution of the pulse profile over a time scale of months or years. Here we show that these characteristics may be explained by a patchy surface temperature distribution, which is expected if the magnetic field has a complex structure in which higher order multipoles contribute together with the dipole. We reconsider these effects from a theoretical point of view, and discuss their implications to the observational properties of thermally emitting neutron stars. |
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