The effect of the neutron star crust on the evolution of a core magnetic field

Abstract

We consider the expulsion of the magnetic field from the super-conducting core of a neutron star and its subsequent decay in the crust. Particular attention is paid to a strong feedback of the distortion of magnetic field lines in the crust on the expulsion of the flux from the core. This causes a considerable delay of the core flux expulsion if the initial field strength is larger than 10^{11} G. It is shown that the hypothesis on the magnetic field expulsion induced by the neutron star spin-down is adequate only for a relatively weak initial magnetic field $B \approx 10^{11}$ G. The expulsion time-scale depends not only on the conductivity of the crust, but also on the initial magnetic field strength itself. Our model of the field evolution naturally explains the existence of the residual magnetic field of neutron stars. Its strength is correlated with the impurity concentration in neutron star crusts and anti-correlated with the initial field strengths.