Ion–proton pulsars

Abstract

Evidence derived with minimal assumptions from existing published observations is presented to show that an ion–proton plasma is the source of radio-frequency emission in millisecond and in normal isolated pulsars. There is no primary involvement of electron–positron pairs. This conclusion has also been reached by studies of the plasma composition based on well-established particle-physics processes in neutron stars with positive polar-cap corotational charge density. This work has been published in a series of papers which are also summarized here. It is now confirmed by simple analyses of the observed radio-frequency characteristics, and its implications for the further study of neutron stars are outlined.