Ion-proton pulsars

Abstract

Evidence derived with minimal assumptions from existing published observations is presented to show that an ion-proton plasma is the source of radio-frequency emission in millisecond and in normal isolated pulsars. There is no primary involvement of electron-positron pairs. This conclusion has also been reached by studies of the plasma composition based on well-established particle-physics processes in neutron stars with positive polar-cap corotational charge density. This work has been published in a series of papers which are also summarized here. It is now confirmed by simple analyses of the observed radio-frequency characteristics, and its implications for the further study of neutron stars are outlined.