Magnetars: How Magnetic Fields Fool Light ⚡ экспресс
Near magnetars, light stops obeying linear laws — nonlinear electrodynamics (NED) comes into play. It noticeably bends the path of photons, and if corrections aren't accounted for, the star's radius calculated from X-rays will be off by roughly 10%. NED also causes a minimal signal delay of 350 nanoseconds — that exceeds the resolution of instruments like NICER (100 ns). It's as if the light from a magnetar 'lags', like passing through an invisible barrier. These effects are critical for interpreting data and precisely measuring neutron star masses with future observatories like eXTP.
Neutron stars are the ultra-dense remnants of stars, where matter is compressed to the limit described by Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar. Magnetars are a type of neutron star with a magnetic field a quadrillion times stronger than Earth's. Normally, light passing a massive body bends because spacetime is warped—it acts like a gravitational lens. But in magnetars, the field adds a second lens: the light bends even more. It's like looking through glasses with double lenses: one from gravity, one from magnetism. Without accounting for the second lens, the error in radius reaches 10%.
Future telescopes, analyzing the flicker of pulsars (discovered by Jocelyn Bell Burnell), will refine neutron star sizes. This will unlock the secrets of ultra-dense matter inaccessible on Earth. And 10% isn't just a number: for a neutron star, it's the line between stability and collapse into a black hole.
🎯 A magnetar with a 10¹⁵ G field can demagnetize all bank cards within 100,000 km—a quarter of the way to the Moon.