Implications of the optical observations of isolated neutron stars

Abstract

We show that observations of pulsars with pulsed optical emission indicate that the peak flux scales according to the magnetic field strength at the light cylinder. The derived relationships indicate that the emission mechanism is common across all of the observed pulsars with periods ranging from 33 to 385 ms and ages of 1000-300,000 yr. It is noted that similar trends exist for gamma -ray pulsars. Furthermore, the model proposed by Pacini and developed by Pacini and Salvati still has validity and gives an adequate explanation of the optical phenomena.