A synchro-curvature treatment of gamma-ray luminosity trends in pulsars

Abstract

In recent years, the Large Area Telescope (LAT) onboard the \emph{Fermi} satellite has detected more than 300 pulsars in the high energy range. The population studies of high energy pulsars show that the gamma ray luminosity of a pulsar ($L_γ$) can be expressed in terms of the spin down luminosity ($\dot{E}$) as $L_γ\propto \dot {E}^s$ having exponent $s\sim 0.68$. This high energy emission, assumed to originate far from the stellar surface and near the light cylinder, is usually studied in either purely curvature or purely synchrotron regime. In this work, we adopt a synchro-curvature radiation framework to understand the origin of gamma ray emission from the pulsar and its implications at the population-level. By comparing the observed cutoff energies of the differential gamma-ray spectra with the theoretical synchro-curvature predictions and enforcing radiation reaction approximation, we determine the equilibrium Lorentz factor and pitch angle of the emitting charged particles. This approach allows to quantify the relative roles of curvature and synchrotron radiation to the radiative losses, thereby providing a physically grounded interpretation of the luminosity trend across the pulsar population.