On the possibility of radio emission of planets around pulsars

Fabrice Mottez (1)

1 LUTH (UMR_8102) - Laboratoire Univers et Théories

A planet orbiting around a pulsar would be immersed in an ultra-relativistic under-dense plasma flow. It would behave as a unipolar inductor, with a significant potential drop along the planet. As for Io in Jupiter's magnetosphere, there would be two stationary Alfvén waves, the Alfvén wings (AW), attached to the planet. The AW would be supported by strong electric currents, in some circumstances comparable to those of a pulsar. It would be a cause of powerful radio waves emitted all along the AW, and highly collimated through relativistic aberration. There would be a chance to detect these radio-emissions from Earth. The emission would be pulses as for ordinary pulsars; their occurrence would depend on the planet-star-observer angle. These results are still preliminary, further work needs to be done.

Mots clés: pulsar; exoplanet; radio astronomy; Alfvén wave; Alfvén wing

Domaines: Planétologie et astrophysique de la terre [astro-ph.EP]; Planétologie et astrophysique de la terre [astro-ph.EP]

Fabrice Mottez. On the possibility of radio emission of planets around pulsars. 2010. ⟨hal-00598293⟩