Matter in strong magnetic fields
By D. Lai. 2000
401 citations recorded by the source corpus.
The properties of matter are drastically modified by strong magnetic fields, $B\ensuremath{\gg}{m}_{e}^{2}{e}^{3}c/{\ensuremath{\Elzxh}}^{3}=2.35\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{9}\mathrm{G}$ $(1\mathrm{G}{=10}^{\ensuremath{-}4}\mathrm{T}),$ as are typically found on the surfaces of neutron stars. In such strong magnetic fields, the Coulomb force on an electron acts as a small perturbation compared to the magnetic force. The strong-field condition can also be mimicked in laboratory semiconductors. Because of the strong magnetic confinement of electrons perpendicular to the field, atoms attain a much greater binding energy compared to the zero-field case, and various other bound states become possible, including molecular chains and three-dimensional condensed matter. This article reviews the electronic structure of atoms, molecules, and bulk matter, as well as the thermodynamic properties of dense plasma, in strong magnetic fields, ${10}^{9}\mathrm{G}\ensuremath{\ll}B\ensuremath{\lesssim}{10}^{16}\mathrm{G}.$ The focus is on the basic physical pictures and approximate scaling relations, although various theoretical approaches and numerical results are also discussed. For a neutron star surface composed of light elements such as hydrogen or helium, the outermost layer constitutes a nondegenerate, partially ionized Coulomb plasma if $B\ensuremath{\lesssim}{10}^{15}$ G (at temperature $T\ensuremath{\gtrsim}{10}^{6}$ K), and may be in the form of a condensed liquid if the magnetic field is stronger (and T $\ensuremath{\gtrsim}{10}^{6}\mathrm{K}).$ For an iron surface, the outermost layer of the neutron star can be in a gaseous or a condensed phase, depending on the cohesive property of the iron condensate.
Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/b31e917342343b316706e5b86be38075330d953e
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Citations in the corpus
- Physics of strongly magnetized neutron stars (2006, methodology): “Other useful books and reviews on strongly magnetized neutron stars include Mészáros (1992), Duncan (2000), Lai (2001) and Harding (2003).”
- Atmospheres and Spectra of Strongly Magnetized Neutron Stars. III. Partially Ionized Hydrogen Models (2001, background): “…of NSs, it is important to understand in detail the radiative properties of NS atmospheres in the presence of strong magnetic fields (see Pavlov et al. 1995; Ho & Lai 2001, 2003a; Zavlin & Pavlov 2002 for more detailed references on observations and on previous works of NS atmosphere modeling).”
- Drifting subpulses and inner acceleration regions in radio pulsars (2003, background): “The most recent result for that density is obtained by Lai (2001) ρs 561AZ−3/5B6/512 g cm−3.”
- Dense astrophysical plasmas (2002, background): “The properties of matter in a magnetic field under NS conditions have been reviewed recently by Ventura and Potekhin (2001) and Lai (2001).”
- The Thermal radiation of the isolated neutron star RX J1856.5-3754 observed with Chandra and XMM-Newton (2002, background): “Such a situation may occur at low temperatures (kT < 86 eV) and high magnetic fields (B > 1013 G) when hydrogen, if present on the NS surface, is expected to be in the form of polyatomic molecules (Lai & Salpeter 1997; Lai 2001).”
- The Radius of PSR J0740+6620 from NICER and XMM-Newton Data (2021, methodology): “The electron cyclotron energy at that field strength is ≈3 eV, which has a small effect on atomic structure (Lai 2001; Potekhin 2014) and is ∼100 times lower than the lowest energies we consider in our fits.”
- Colloquium : nonlinear collective interactions in quantum plasmas with degenerate electron fluids (2010, background): “…of wide interest due to their applications to astrophysical and cosmological environments (Benvenuto and De Vito, 2005; Harding and Lai, 2006; Lai, 2001; Opher, 2001), as well as to inertial fusion science involving intense laser-solid density plasma interaction experiments (Andreev, 2000;…”
- A Reconnection Switch to Trigger gamma-Ray Burst Jet Dissipation (2010, background): “The high-field suppression of the scattering cross-section for the E mode and the efficient conversion of the ordinary mode (O mode) to E mode (Meszaros 1992; Thompson & Duncan 1995) means that radiative emission is dominated by the E mode with this scattering crosssection when above the critical fi”