Analogies: Automobiles, propellers, muffins
Introduction:
These analogies are intended to relate familiar real-world phenomena to the observed behavior of astrophysical pulsars, in order to understand why current explanations result in a self-contradictory paradigm for pulsar evolution. It lays the foundation for a new paradigm for pulsar evolution that requires the capture of a non-spinning neutron star as the only possible mechanism to explain the existing spin data on pulsars.
Automobile analogy:
Consider the 2 main features that control the speed of an automobile:
- Stepping on the gas causes the auto to go faster
- Stepping on the brake causes the auto to go slower
Similarly, there are 2 main features that control the spin rate of a pulsar:
- Slow pulsars in binary systems go faster by matter accretion increasing the pulsar’s rotational energy
- Isolated pulsars are first seen as fast pulsars but go slower by radiating away their rotational energy.
The very existence of slow pulsars in binary systems contradicts the theory that pulsars are initially created in a fast spinning state, because a fast pulsar in a binary system can’t slow down.
Placing the fast pulsar in a binary system and expecting it to slow down is equivalent to trying to slow down a speeding car by stepping on the gas pedal.
That, in summary, is the essence of the secret of the pulsars.
Propeller in a wind tunnel analogy
In order to understand the fundamental contradiction that NS-Creation leads us to, consider the following analogy.
- Start a propeller spinning very fast, and stick it in the ground like a wind turbine. The propeller will slow down eventually.
This is analogous to NS-Creation creating a Fast Pulsar, FP(-), that right after the SNE begins to slow down and eventually stops spinning. - Take a propeller at rest and place it in a wind tunnel such that the wind speeds it up to be a very fast propeller similar to the propeller in (1).
This is analogous to the X-ray pulsars that are in binary systems with a giant star as their companions. The X-ray pulsars start as slow pulsars, SP(+), and spin up until they are Fast Pulsars, FP(+), still spinning up.
In this analogy the giant star is analogous to the wind tunnel, in that it provides the mechanism to spin up the propeller. - Now, to complete the analogy, in order for NS-Creation to be applied to binary systems containing a pulsar and a giant star, it needs to start with a fast spinning pulsar that it just created, as in (1) above, FP(-), and immediately put it in the wind tunnel.
The problem is that in the wind tunnel it is impossible for the FP(-) to slow down, and, in fact, it immediately becomes a FP(+), spinning up from the wind.
This is the fundamental contradiction that the NS-Creation theory runs into, and is the reason we are forced to consider the NS-Capture theory as the only theory that can explain the binary slow pulsars that are spinning up with a giant companion: [GS+SP(+)].
i.e. a [GS+SP(+)] cannot be created by NS-Creation, because all NS-Creation can do is create a [GS+FP(0)], which is a fast pulsar that cannot slow down, and, in fact will probably spin up: [GS+FP(+)].
i.e. this is an example of observation that isolated pulsars spin down, but pulsars with a companion spin up.
Another analogy
While it may seem that this is belaboring the point, another very simple analogy may be useful if one still does not understand the essential point of the spin contradiction concept as applied to x-ray binary pulsars such as Cen X-3 and the BeXRB’s. This contradiction is the essence of why NS-Capture must be true and NS-Creation must be false, which then leads to the implication that there must be on the order of 5 trillion neutron stars (NS’s) in the Milky Way Galaxy (MWG).
Consider a possibly even simpler analogy: a hot oven and a muffin. Let the giant star be the hot oven and let the fast pulsar be a hot muffin and the slow pulsar a cool muffin.
What we see with systems like Cen X-3 is a cool muffin heating up in its hot oven companion giant star (GS).
For an isolated giant star, such as the precursor to the Crab, the giant star may be regarded as the hot oven, which when it exploded in an SNE left behind a hot muffin (fast pulsar). The point here is that NS-Creation predicts only the production of hot muffins (i.e. fast pulsars) as the immediate result of a SuperNova Explosion, not cool muffins (slow pulsars).
Now if the pre-cursor to Cen X-3 was 2 giant stars (GS+GS), then when one of them exploded in an SNE, it would leave behind a hot muffin (FP = fast pulsar) as a companion to the GS: i.e. GS+FP.
However, the 2nd GS is still a hot oven and the SNE left a hot muffin (FP) in its vicinity. Since, if one puts a hot muffin in a hot oven, there is no chance that it can cool down, then, by analogy, the same is true for the GS+FP, i.e. there is no chance that the hot muffin (FP) can cool down (slow down) as long as it is in the hot oven (GS = hot oven).
Basically, the Cen X-3 pulsar can be regarded as a cool muffin in a hot oven. However, if the Cen X-3 pulsar originated as a hot muffin (fast pulsar) when it first became part of the binary (as it would have to if NS-Creation were true), then there is no possibility that it could have slowed down to be the cool muffin we observe today. i.e. a hot muffin cannot cool down in a hot oven.
Therefore, since NS-Creation cannot have created Cen X-3, the only way left to have created the Cen X-3 pulsar is by NS-Capture.
