THE INFLUENCE OF QUANTUM VACUUM FRICTION ON PULSARS

Abstract

We first revisit the energy loss mechanism known as quantum vacuum friction (QVF), clarifying some of its subtleties. Then we investigate the observables that could easily differentiate QVF from the classical magnetic dipole radiation for pulsars with accurately measured braking indices (n). We show that this is particularly the case for the time evolution of a pulsar’s magnetic dipole direction ( ) and surface magnetic field ( ). As is well known in the context of the classic magnetic dipole radiation, n < 3 would only be possible for positive , which, for instance, leads to ( ) when ϕ ( B 0 ) is constant. On the other hand, we show that QVF can result in very different predictions with respect to those above. Finally, even if has the same sign in both of the aforementioned models for a pulsar, then, for a given ϕ , we show that they give rise to different associated timescales, which could be another way to falsify QVF.