Nonlinear Electromagnetic Delay of Electromagnetic Signals Propagating in the Magnetic Meridian Plane of Pulsars and Magnetars

Abstract

We analyze the propagation of electromagnetic waves in the magnetic meridian planes of neutron stars with a strong magnetic field in the framework of the parameterized post-Maxwellian electrodynamics of the vacuum. The origin of these electromagnetic waves is the curvature emission of X-rays and gamma rays from high-energy electrons in the vicinity of the magnetic poles of neutron stars. We show that in the case of a slowly varying intensity of X-ray and gamma-ray emission, the delay of the slow normal mode of electromagnetic waves relative to the fast mode results in a shift of the time dependence of the intensity of the detected radiation with one polarization relative to that of the radiation with the orthogonal polarization. In the case of single X-ray or gamma-ray pulses, the delay effect results in the polarization of the detected pulse varying during the pulse length, the leading edge of all pulses being polarized normally to the magnetic equator plane of the neutron star. We note that the modern level of the experimental technique, in principle, allows observing the manifestations of the delay effect for signals of different polarizations.