QED Plasma and Magnetars

Understand

Magnetars are surrounded by diffuse plasma in magnetic field strengths well above the quantum electrodynamic critical value.

• We derive equations of "quantum force-free electrodynamics" for this plasma using effective field theory arguments.
• We argue that quantum effects do not modify the large scale structure of the magnetosphere, and in particular that the spin-down rate does not deviate significantly from the classical result.
• We provide definite evolution equations that can be used to explore potentially important small-scale corrections, such as shock formation, which has been proposed as a mechanism for both burst and quiescent emission from magnetars.