Polarization of thermal X-rays from isolated neutron stars

Since the opacity of a magnetized plasma depends on polarization of radiati on, the radiation emergent from atmospheres of neutron stars with strong ma gnetic fields is expected to be strongly polarized. The degree of linear po larization, typically similar to 10%-30%, depends on photon energy, effecti ve temperature, and magnetic held. The spectrum of polarization is more sen sitive to the magnetic held than the spectrum of intensity. Both the degree of polarization and the position angle vary with the neutron star rotation period so that the shape of polarization pulse profiles depends on the ori entation of the rotational and magnetic axes. Moreover, as the polarization is substantially modified by the general relativistic effects, observation s of polarization of X-ray radiation from isolated neutron stars provide a new method for evaluating the mass-to-radius ratio of these objects, which is particularly important for elucidating the properties of the superdense matter in the neutron star interiors.