X-ray polarisation signatures in bombarded magnetar atmospheres

Abstract

Magnetars are neutron stars that host huge, complex magnetic fields which require supporting currents to flow along the closed field lines. This makes magnetar atmospheres different from those of passively cooling neutron stars because of the heat deposited by backflowing charges impinging on the star surface layers. This particle bombardment is expected to imprint the spectral and, even more, the polarisation properties of the emitted thermal radiation. We present solutions for the radiative transfer problem for bombarded plane-parallel atmospheres in the high magnetic field regime. The temperature profile is assumed a priori, and selected in such a way to reflect the varying rate of energy deposition in the slab (from the impinging currents and/or from the cooling crust). We find that thermal X-ray emission powered entirely by the energy released in the atmosphere by the magnetospheric back-bombardment is linearly polarised and X-mode dominated, but its polarisation degree is significantly reduced (down to $10-50\%$) when compared with that expected from a standard atmosphere heated only from the cooling crust below. By increasing the fraction of heat flowing in from the crust the polarisation degree of the emergent radiation increases, first at higher energies ($\sim 10$ keV) and then in the entire soft X-ray band. We use our models inside a ray-tracing code to derive the expected emission properties as measured by a distant observer and compare our results with recent IXPE observations of magnetar sources.