Dynamical structure of radiation-dominated pulsar accretion shocks

摘要

The flow of a radiation-dominated ideal fluid through a standing, radiative shock is an important aspect of accretion onto high-luminosity X-ray pulsars. A complete understanding of the shock structure is required in order to analyze the role of Fermi energization in producing the power-law spectra observed from typical X-ray pulsars. The detailed structure of the shock in turn depends on the bound- ary conditions imposed at the stellar surface, which are dictated by the strong magnetic filed. Close to the neutron star, the accreting plasma is constrained to fall along the magnetic field lines, and therefore the flow should stagnate at the stellar surface and the energy flux into the star should vanish.