Pulsar-Driven Jets in Supernovae, Gamma-Ray Bursts, and the Universe

Abstract EN

The bipolarity of Supernova 1987A can be understood through its very early light curve from the CTIO 0.4 m telescope and IUE FES and following speckle observations of the “Mystery Spot”.

These indicate a beam/jet of light/particles, with initial collimation factors >104 and velocities >0.95 c, involving up to 10−5 M⊙ interacting with circumstellar material.

These can be produced by a model of pulsar emission from polarization currents induced/(modulated faster than c) beyond the pulsar light cylinder by the periodic electromagnetic field (supraluminally induced polarization currents (SLIP)).

SLIP accounts for the disruption of supernova progenitors and their anomalous dimming at cosmological distances, jets from Sco X-1 and SS 433, the lack/presence of pulsations from the high-/low-luminosity low-mass X-ray binaries, and long/short gamma-ray bursts, and it predicts that their afterglows are the pulsed optical-/near-infrared emission associated with these pulsars.

SLIP may also account for the TeV e+/e− results from PAMELA and ATIC, the WMAP “Haze”/Fermi “Bubbles,” and the r-process.

SLIP jets from SNe of the first stars may allow galaxies to form without dark matter and explain the peculiar nongravitational motions between pairs of distant galaxies observed by GALEX.