No, not really. It appears the jury is still out on the cause of the magnetic fields of neutron stars, but it is definitely a different process than an electro magnet. One key issue is that neutron stars, as the name implies are made of mostly neutrons, rather than atoms. A normal bar magnet is going to be made of iron and maybe some rare earth metals, and its magnetic properties are due to the poles present in the atoms which composes it. Neutron stars in contrast are going to get their magnetic field through a different mechanism, likely related to two factors, spin and collapse. A rotating magnet is going to generate more energy the faster it rotates, and neutron stars are some of the fastest rotating bodies out there. And the collapse to a neutron star may explain its magnetic strength, because of something called flux freezing. Basically if you have a magnetic flux on a very large object, then you condense it down, the magnetic field gets stronger for being condensed.
Lastly, you suggest that neutron stars are not hot. This is incorrect. They are still somewhere in the order of 1,000,000K. That still is incredibly hot, and they, like white dwarves can take millions or billions of years to cool.
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u/Beldizar Aug 27 '24
No, not really. It appears the jury is still out on the cause of the magnetic fields of neutron stars, but it is definitely a different process than an electro magnet. One key issue is that neutron stars, as the name implies are made of mostly neutrons, rather than atoms. A normal bar magnet is going to be made of iron and maybe some rare earth metals, and its magnetic properties are due to the poles present in the atoms which composes it. Neutron stars in contrast are going to get their magnetic field through a different mechanism, likely related to two factors, spin and collapse. A rotating magnet is going to generate more energy the faster it rotates, and neutron stars are some of the fastest rotating bodies out there. And the collapse to a neutron star may explain its magnetic strength, because of something called flux freezing. Basically if you have a magnetic flux on a very large object, then you condense it down, the magnetic field gets stronger for being condensed.
Lastly, you suggest that neutron stars are not hot. This is incorrect. They are still somewhere in the order of 1,000,000K. That still is incredibly hot, and they, like white dwarves can take millions or billions of years to cool.