Magnetars

[EdEarl]

I seem to have found a contradiction about magnetars in Wikipedia. It says that a magnetar is a neutron star. The description of a neutron star says they contain only neutrons. However, the description of a magnetar says it contains protons.

 

Additionally, is a magnetar and the space around it (if filled with electrons) anything like a super massive atom? Since I have not seen such a description, perhaps electrons around a magnetar are not in orbitals? If not, why have they not been pulled into the magnetar and made the magnetar charge zero? Maybe the electrons are in an accretion disk, and eventually they will fall into the magnetar, except the magnetic fields might pull the electrons out of an accretion disk.

 

Can someone teach me a bit more about magnetars without delving into a lot of math, and provide references that include math? tyvm

[pwagen]

I can't seem to find anything about them being made out of protons. Have you got any more information or links on that?

[EdEarl]

From wikipedia: "The strong fields of magnetars are understood as resulting from a magnetohydrodynamic dynamo process in the turbulent, extremely dense conducting fluid that exists before the neutron star settles into its equilibrium configuration. These fields then persist due to persistent currents in a proton-superconductor phase of matter that exists at an intermediate depth within the neutron star (where neutrons predominate by mass). A similar magnetohydrodynamic dynamo process produces even more intense transient fields during coalescence of pairs of neutron stars."

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetar#Origins_of_magnetic_fields

 

http://www.the-electric-universe.info/printings/electric_magnetars.html

Edited May 28, 2013 by EdEarl

[Enthalpy]

Neutrons alone are radioactive. As I imagine to understand it, only the density of remaining electrons in a neutron star makes the capture of a an electron by a remaining proton as probable as the emission of an electron by a neutron in a beta minus decay.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_decay

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron_capture

 

At the fuzzy surface of the star, the density is less, so the proportion of protons and electrons must increase relative to neutrons.

 

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At the scale of a planet, atomic orbitals are too close to an other in energy, position and momentum, so the effect of quantization can't be felt hence is not interesting. Quantization is still important at the scale of a quantum dots, say 50nm diameter, and this is more or less the upper limit in three dimensions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_dot

 

Mono-dimensional items like Squids show quantization at a bigger scale

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SQUID