SIMBAD references

In this paper we investigate the anisotropy of the thermal-like radiation emitted by the atmosphere of a neutron star with a strong magnetic field. Angular dependences of the fluxes at various photon energies, and spectra at various inclinations of the magnetic axis to the line of sight are obtained for different distributions of the magnetic field B and effective temperature T_eff over the neutron star surface. We show that the radiation of the magnetized neutron stars is anisotropic even if T_eff is constant along the star surface. The shape and degree of modulation of the light curves observed from a rotating neutron star depend essentially on the surface distributions of T_eff and B. The pulsations at the low-energy and high-energy parts of the spectra may be phase-shifted for not too high effective temperatures. The general properties of the neutron star thermal-like radiation inferred from the theoretical models are in qualitative agreement with the results of recent ROSAT observations of pulsars of medium age.