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Published July 11, 2003 | Published + Submitted
Journal Article Open

Covariant magnetoionic theory -- I. Ray propagation

Abstract

Accretion on to compact objects plays a central role in high-energy astrophysics. In these environments, both general relativistic and plasma effects may have a significant impact upon the propagation of photons. We present a fully general relativistic magnetoionic theory, capable of tracing rays in the geometrical optics approximation through a magnetized plasma in the vicinity of a compact object. We consider both the cold and warm, ion and pair plasmas. When plasma effects become large the two plasma eigenmodes follow different ray trajectories, resulting in a large observable polarization. This has implications for accreting systems ranging from pulsars and X-ray binaries to active galactic nuclei.

Additional Information

© 2003 RAS. Accepted 2003 March 12. Received 2003 March 12; in original form 2003 January 28. We would like to thank Eric Agol and Yasser Rathore for a number of useful conversations and comments regarding this work. In addition, we would like to thank Don Melrose for advice and bringing to our attention some related papers. This research has been supported by NASA grants 5-2837 and 5-12032.

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Submitted - 0302190

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