Non-magnetic Pulsar Emission Mechanism

Abstract

It is generally accepted that the pulsar magnetic field converts most of its rotational energy losses into radiation. In this paper, we propose an alternative emission mechanism, in which neither the pulsar rotational energy nor its magnetic field is involved. The emission mechanism proposed here is based on the hypothesis that the pulsar matter is stable only when moving with respect to the ambient medium at a velocity exceeding some threshold value. A decrease in velocity below this threshold value leads to the decay of matter with the emission of electromagnetic radiation. It is shown that decay regions on the pulsar surface in which the velocities of pulsar particles drops to arbitrarily small values are formed under simple driving condition. It is also shown that for the majority of pulsars having measured transverse velocities, such a condition is quite possible. Thus, the pulsar radiation carries away not the pulsar rotational energy, but its mass, while the magnitude of the rotational energy does not play any role. At the end of the paper, we consider the reason for the possible short-period precession of the pulsar.