Why does a neutron star emit beams radiation at it's poles???

Question

Thanks for the detailed answer...

Answer 1

This is actually fairly well understood. The radiation is beamed from the magnetic poles, btw, which may or may not (and usually don't) correlate with the rotational poles. The magnetic fields trap charged particles, so a lot of the matter that makes it to the surface of a neutron star does so where the magnetic field intersects the surface of the star, namely the poles. This is analgous to terrestrial aurora occurring in a ring around the terrestrial magnetic poles as low energy charged particles from the sun interesect with the upper atomosphere of the Earth.

The matter that makes it to the surface flies in at an apprecialbe fraction of the speed of light, releasing a great deal of energy at impact and making for very hot spots. The Crab pulsar is actually not only a radio pulsar, but even an optical pulsar as those hotspots spin across our line of sight. Now, the radio radiation is beamed along the line of sight to those hot spots because a lot of it is synchotron radiation, produced by charged particles whipping around the lines of magnetic potential at high speeds (when you accelerate a charge, it emits).

Answer 2

Honestly, science really doesn't know yet. I don't think all neutron stars emit beams at their poles but I man be wrong...

Here's an article on pulsars that's interesting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulsar