Angles between the Magnetic Moment and the Rotation Axis in Radio Pulsars with Hard Emission

Abstract

We have performed a comparative analysis of the angles \(\beta\) between the rotation axis and the magnetic moment in three groups of radio pulsars: sources in which only radio emission is observed, pulsars with detected X-ray emission, and radio-loud gamma-ray pulsars. For this purpose, we have calculated the values of the angle \(\beta\) separately for objects from each group by two different methods. It has turned out that in pulsars with hard emission the mean values of this angle (28.2\({}^{\circ}\) and 28.8\({}^{\circ}\)) are higher than those for quiet radio pulsars (12.9\({}^{\circ}\)). However, using the Kolmogorov–Smirnov test, we have shown that the revealed difference is insignificant with a high probability. Consequently, the structures of the magnetospheres in the three groups of pulsars considered do not differ significantly, while their difference is attributable to the values of the magnetic field on the light cylinder that switches on the hard non-thermal emission mechanism in pulsars with detected X-ray and/or gamma-ray emission but is not enough for this in radio pulsars without hard emission.