Pulsars: Cosmic Permanent 'Neutromagnets'?

We argue that pulsars may be spin-polarized neutron stars, i.e. cosmic permanent magnets. This would simply explain several observational facts about pulsars, including the ‘beacon effect’ itself i.e. the static/stable misalignment of rotational and magnetic axes, the extreme temporal stability of the pulses and the existence of an upper limit for the magnetic field strength

• coinciding with the one observed in “magnetars”. Although our model admittedly is speculative, this latter fact seems to us unlikely to be pure coincidence.