Pulsar Kick by the Chiral Anisotropy Conversion

Abstract

We discuss a novel mechanism for the proto-neutron star acceleration assisted by the chiral separation effect which induces an axial vector current in a dense medium. We consider the process of neutrinos scattering off the background axial vector current of electrons. We show that anisotropy of either magnetic field or density in momentum space is essential for nonzero recoil and we call this mechanism the chiral anisotropy conversion. Assuming a strong magnetic field $B\simeq 10^{12}$ T and anisotropy by $\sim 10\%$, we find that the chiral anisotropy conversion can yield the velocity of order of typical pulsar kicks, i.e., $v_{\mathrm{kick}}\gtrsim 1000$ km/s.

Comments: 6 pages, 4 figures