Early Accretion Onset in Long-Period Isolated Pulsars

• Main Authors: Afonina, M. D, Biryukov, A. V, Popov, S. B
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 23.10.2023
• Subjects: Physics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
• DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2310.14844

We model long-term magneto-rotational evolution of isolated neutron stars with long initial spin periods. This analysis is motivated by the recent discovery of young long-period neutron stars observed as periodic radio sources: PSR J0901-4046, GLEAM-X J1627-52, and GPM J1839-10. Our calculations demonstrate that for realistically rapid spin-down during the propeller stage isolated neutron stars with velocities $\lesssim100$ km s$^{-1}$ and assumed long initial spin periods can reach the stage of accretion from the interstellar medium within at most a few billion years as they are born already at the propeller stage or sufficiently close to the critical period of the ejector-propeller transition. If neutron stars with long initial spin periods form a relatively large fraction of all Galactic neutron stars then the number of isolated accretors is substantially larger than it has been predicted by previous studies.