Neutron Star Powered Accelerators

Neutron stars can be the underlying source of energetic particle acceleration in several ways. The huge gravitational-collapse energy released in their birth, or the violent fusion at the end of the life of a neutron-star binary, is the energy source for an accelerator in the surrounding medium far from the star. This would be the case for: (a) cosmic rays from supernova explosions with neutron-star remnants; (b) energetic radiation from “plerions” around young neutron stars (e.g., the Crab Nebula, see Pacini 2000); and (c) “afterglow” and γ-rays of cosmic Gamma-Ray Burst (GRB) sources with possible neutron-star central engines. Particles can also be energetically accelerated if a neutron star's gravitational pull sustains an accretion disk fed by a companion. Examples are accretion-powered X-ray pulsars and low-mass X-ray binaries. A third family of “neutron-star powered” accelerators consists of those which do not depend on the surrounding environment. These are the accelerators which must exist in the magnetospheres of many solitary, spinning-down, magnetized neutron stars (“spinsters”) when they are observed as radio pulsars or γ-ray pulsars. (There are probably ~ 10 3 dead radio pulsars for each one in our Galaxy that is still active; the ratio for γ-ray pulsars may well exceed 10 5 .)