Searching for curvature pion radiation from protons in strongly magnetized pulsars

By using rather conservative estimates based on the simplest polar cap model, we search the ATNF Pulsar Catalogue for strongly magnetized stars that could accelerate relativistic protons up to the curvature pion production threshold. The best candidate turns out to be the 16 ms pulsar J0537-6910, but the corresponding characteristic parameter χ=a/mp is yet too small to give origin to observable signals. We show that, for pulsars with period P≈1 ms, a surface polar magnetic field B≈1012 G is required in order to induce detectable curvature pion radiation from accelerated protons in the magnetosphere. Some other emission processes are also considered.