Abstract
We develop an atmosphere model for neutron stars with strong magnetic fields. The atmosphere is composed of pure hydrogen. We assume it is fully ionized and the opacity considered is contributed from the Thomson scattering and free-free absorption. The equation of state has incorporated Coulomb correction. We have allowed an arbitrary magnetic field direction in our codes for solving the radiation transfer equation. In this paper,we have performed a computation with a magnetic field of 10^12 G, effective temperature 10^6 K and surface gravity g*=GM/(R*R)(1-2GM/(Rc^2))=10^13 cm/sec^2. Theangle between the magnetic field and the surface normal is90 degree. The computed emergent spectra exhibit a high degree of polarization, limb darkening, high-energy bumps, and cyclotron lines. In addition, the polarization also depends on the viewing angles. Our current work forms the basis for more comprehensive studies in the future.