Magnetars as Astrophysical Laboratories of Extreme Quantum Electrodynamics: The Case for a Compton Telescope

Understand

A next generation of Compton and pair telescopes that improve MeV-band detection sensitivity by more than a decade beyond current instrumental capabilities will open up new insights into a variety of astrophysical source classes.

• Among these are magnetars, the most highly magnetic of the neutron star zoo, which will serve as a prime science target for a new mission surveying the MeV window.
• This paper outlines the core questions pertaining to magnetars that can be addressed by such a technology.
• These range from global magnetar geometry and population trends, to incisive probes of hard X-ray emission locales, to providing cosmic laboratories for spectral and polarimetric testing of exotic predictions of QED, principally the prediction of the splitting of photons and magnetic pair creation.